Cramps...in your shin?

[Swim-cycle]

I’ve spent hours online reading about leg cramps, causes, etc. While it appears many get them during their ride in the calf, I get them about six hours later in my shin. I guess one would identify the muscle group as the tibialis.

Ultimately what happens is I’ll wake up late at night/early morning with a cramp. Usually it’s in one leg (rarely both legs simultaneously). The cramp doesn’t jolt me out of bed like a calf cramp might, this cramp simply causes my foot to sort of contort and bend. While I don’t jump out of bed immediately, ultimately I do get up because it almost becomes unbearable: so I get up to apply my body weight on my foot to “stretch” or “pull” the muscle to make the cramp go away. And then I quickly try to fall back asleep!

But then, the cramp will either come back again within an hour or so, or worse, happen in the other leg! Never at the same time…

While I do take supplements, especially magnesium to help better absorb the potassium, nothing seems to help. Sometimes when I “catch” the cramp early enough, I’ll rest my other leg on top of my cramping leg to “prevent” the muscles from contorting my foot. I’m thinking about getting some blood work done to measure my nutrients.

Anyone else here had, or heard of such an occurrence? Everyone I’ve talked to about this to date have all looked at me like I’m crazy…

 

[Vassya]

совет моей мамы, который всегда срабатывает: при судорогах ног нужно слюноотделить подколенную ямку - нанесите слюну на палец и приложите к указанному месту. Выпускает очень быстро

 

[cobbwheels]

I’ve spent hours online reading about leg cramps, causes, etc. While it appears many get them during their ride in the calf, I get them about six hours later in my shin. I guess one would identify the muscle group as the tibialis.

Ultimately what happens is I’ll wake up late at night/early morning with a cramp. Usually it’s in one leg (rarely both legs simultaneously). The cramp doesn’t jolt me out of bed like a calf cramp might, this cramp simply causes my foot to sort of contort and bend. While I don’t jump out of bed immediately, ultimately I do get up because it almost becomes unbearable: so I get up to apply my body weight on my foot to “stretch” or “pull” the muscle to make the cramp go away. And then I quickly try to fall back asleep!

But then, the cramp will either come back again within an hour or so, or worse, happen in the other leg! Never at the same time…

While I do take supplements, especially magnesium to help better absorb the potassium, nothing seems to help. Sometimes when I “catch” the cramp early enough, I’ll rest my other leg on top of my cramping leg to “prevent” the muscles from contorting my foot. I’m thinking about getting some blood work done to measure my nutrients.

Anyone else here had, or heard of such an occurrence? Everyone I’ve talked to about this to date have all looked at me like I’m crazy…

I have cramped my shin before but the problem went away on its own and only happened after a very long ride like a century.

It happened to me twice over the years. First time when I started pedaling heels down which cause some pain in the heel joint. The joint pain went away eventually as I got used to the pedaling technique and shin cramping/soreness with it. 2nd time when I sprained my heel after a crash and riding with a sprained heel. When the shin cramping went away when the sprain was fully healed.

I didn't do any changes in nutrition to fix the problem. I have bonked a ride before running out of water, electrolytes, fuel, everything and never had cramps on my shin. If I get any sort of cramps when I bonk, it usually happens on the quads or the hamstrings, not anywhere else and definitely not on the shin.

Another thing that could cause shin issues aside from heel injury is wrong pedaling technique. If you're pulling up on upstroke of the pedaling cycle. Relax your heel completely. Do not tense your shin to pull the pedal up with your foot. It's not going to help at all.