What is a muscle cramp?

While there are many reasons why runner's get injured I want to share with you what I consider the common causes based on what we treat in clinic. Posture I find many clients know they don't have the perfect posture when they sit at their desks but assume their running won't be affected.  This is wrong,  bad posture carries over into your run which can put extra stress on your back and knees.  So its important to focus on good running posture which is upper torso straight with head balanced directly over shoulders and lower back not arched. Training Errors This is the number 1 cause of running injuries.  Training errors basically means your are trying to run too much or too far or too quickly for your body.  The body needs time to adapt from training changes and jumps in mileage, intensity or changes in terrain.  Muscles need recovery time to they can handle more training demands.  If you rush the process you break can down rather than build up.  Running experts recommend the 10% rule, which means the maximum speed or distance (note I didn't say speed and distance) you increase by each week is 10%.  So if you run 10 miles in the first week, you run 11 miles in the second week and so on. RICE - Rest,Ice, Compression and Elevation All of my clients know rice.  However I find too many runners focus on the I (ice), and ignore the RCE.  So they tend to get stuck in a cycle of ice-and-run, ice-and-run etc without giving the muscles time to heal.  Its like dieting every day until 7pm and then pigging out at the all your can eat buffet!  Remember the R in RICE means rest, i.e. don't run until the injury is better.  

It is reported that period pain affects two thirds of women ranging from mild discomfort to pain at some time or other.  Period pain happens because of contractions in the uterus, or womb, which is a muscle. If it contracts too strongly during your menstrual cycle, it can press against nearby blood vessels. This briefly cuts off the supply of oxygen to the uterus. It’s this lack of oxygen causes your pain and cramping. The cramping can be felt in the lower belly or lower back or both.  The intensity of the cramping can very from mild to severe. In addition to cramping women can get leg pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea or extreme fatigue. When period pain has no obvious cause, it is classified by the medical profession as “primary” while pain caused by an actual condition e.g. endometriosis, fibroids, PID (pelvic inflammatory disease) is called “secondary”. In the next few blogs I want to share some tips on assisting those women like myself who suffer from primary period pain. I personally have found that placing a hot water bottle on your lower back/belly or taking a warm bath may provide some relief.  If you are at work, you can put a hot pad on the area.  One of the things that got me hooked on reflexology was that it helped it reduced my PMT and I felt that my periods were less painful too.

The small intestine is as wide as your thumb and around 5.5m long.  It is both a food blender and assimilator as it digests more of your food than your stomach.  Food stays in the small intestine  for 1 - 4 hours before moving on to the large intestine for further processing. Maintaing a healthy small intestine is all about controlling your bacteria levels and mucus build-up on your intestinal walls which can cause havoc and deplete your energy levels.  If you have bloating, gas and loose bowel movements you may have a small intestine issues such as:

• Candida
• IBS
• SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth

1. Cut out imflammatory drugs e.g. asprin, paracetamol and avoid alchol.
2. Take L-glutamine and butyric acid both of these can help heal the gut, but check with a nutritionalist first as dosage is important.
3. Drink slippery elm tea which calms inflamation of the small intestine and helps relieve IBS.
4. Up your intake of vitamins A and D - liver is an excellent sourch of these vitamins which protect the mucus membrane of the gut.
5. Eat more antibacterial foods such as garlic, honey and sauerkraut which preven the growth of Candida, fungus and yeast infections.
6. Take oregano oil (Oregnano Vulgaris) which has been shown to stop Candidan in its tracks.
7. Take probiotics daily - look for a count of 50 billion or more in each dose.
8. Take prebiotics daily - to feed the probiotics.  Or eat food prebiotic foods such as sauerkraut or kimchi.
9. Go gluten free.  Cut out gluten for an entire week and keep a food diary to check if your symptoms improve.
10. Mimosa pudica an ayurvedic herb is brilliant at wiping out parasites.
11. Eat more ant-parasitics such as garlic, thyme, chilli, tumeric and ginger.