cramp

Hello Kim

Thanks for chiming in Paul.

Kim, you are on the right track. Electrolytes are the key.

I agree with Paul in that cutting the number of training sessions is not instrumental. At the risk of countering the other part of Paul’s post which (whether intended or not) which only mentions the importance of hydration and does not mention the importance of electrolytes at all, I would like to make it very clear so that anybody who reads this thread is under no misconception at all.

Water consumption (for the sake of hydration) must in all cases be balanced with electrolyte consumption. Recommendations of that to follow.

Drinking ample water and no electrolyte supplementation is a risky proposition, especially in the early days of practice where salt losses through sweat are the highest.

Electrolytes – which are found in normal unadulterated sea salt – are the ‘fuel’ for muscle health, for proper kidney function and just about any other function in the body.

Too little salt – which also happens when too much water is taken – causes imbalances. Look up hyponatremia to understand the problem. Just a few signs of hyponatremia include muscle cramps and weakness. You may have heard that if you are prone to painful cramps in the middle of the night then you should have some salt by your bedside.

If you’ve ever had a cramp and then popped a little salt on the tongue the cramp will – in 99% of the time – disappear IMMEDIATELY.

Don’t be concerned about too much sea salt and hypernatremia – a condition of too much sodium – because it only happens in the very rarest of occasion and often in a hospital environment associated with particular metabolic disorders. However NEVER have too much table salt, in fact you should NEVER have table salt at all. It has only sodium and chloride and causes imbalance rather than nourish the body.

Keep up the sea salt intake. It is said that for regular use 1/2 tsp per day is a good ‘dose’. A wonderful thing you can try Kim is to put a little sprinkle of sea salt in your water (even at yoga) and a few drops of lemon juice. So refreshing. It feels like an elixir that gives you back energy, stamina. Tell me how it goes.

Your cramps will disappear. I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn’t take long at all.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for your contributions, both of you.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Kim

Thanks for getting back! OK, so to heal your legs the thing to do is to stop trying to lock them out in those poses. :cheese:

I would need to know much more detail about what exactly you are doing there but I can tell you this: The mechanisms for the poses you mentioned work incredibly well with bent legs if you’re doing them correctly to start with.

So to see if you are doing it with best-practice techniques go and check out the forum under those specific poses. The head to knee pose that you’re talking about on the floor is the one of me pictured above. Do you look like that (or similar) or does your head come away from the knee? These are practice elements that are covered in many threads around the forum

When you have reviewed those come back and let me know.

It is possible that you are straightening out the legs way before time and actually creating strain in your legs. Maybe you have an underlying injury. Can’t tell yet. Your research will help.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂