Muscle Cramps

"What should I do if I am experiencing muscle cramps?" 

Prevention is the key to avoiding muscle cramps. Make sure that you are fully hydrated before beginning an activity. This requires drinking enough water all the time, not just drinking some a half hour before the game.  Are you drinking enough water on a daily basis? 

Example: Male 225lbs ÷ 1.75 = 128oz (minimum H2O per day)

Example: Female 125lbs ÷ 1.75 = 71oz (minimum H2O per day)

Make sure that you have optimum levels of electrolytes in the body. Sipping a few ounces of a concentrated sports drink before the activity can be a good idea. Again, remember that you should strive to maintain sufficient levels all the time, and not just before activities.

If you feel that the cramp is severe enough to affect your performance, don't hesitate to let your coach or trainer know what is going on. Any good coach/trainer knows that athletes get muscle cramps, and has dealt with them.

Prevention &Treatment Tips

 Stretching:

Stretching a cramped muscle out can help to temporarily relieve a muscle cramps. Use a slow, sustained stretch, rather than quick and forceful ones.

 Massage/kneading:

When a muscle is cramping, circulation may be restricted to that area. Vigorously massaging & kneading the affected muscle will help to boost circulation to the area. The application of a heating balm can help to increase blood flow.

 Restoring Electrolytes & Fluids:

Restoring electrolytes can help to eliminate the cramp, if deficiency was a cause in the first place. 
Electrolytes are minerals such as sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium that help the cells to function normally. An imbalance occurs when we have too much or too little of one or more electrolytes in our system. The main electrolytes affecting muscle cramping are potassium (meats and fish), sodium (table salt and processed foods), magnesium (bananas, avocados, nuts, whole grains) and calcium (milk, cheese, yogurt).

Sipping on a sports drink that will help to replenish these. Ideally, the sports drink you choose will contain sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
If having fluids in your stomach will upset you during the rest of the activity, choose a concentrated sports drink that has a high amount of electrolytes per unit of liquid. If this is not an issue, then consume a larger amount of liquid. The greater the amount of liquid, the faster the minerals will be absorbed. Drink as much liquid as you can without causing stomach pain.

 Warm up and Cool down:

A proper warm-up and cool down may help keep cramps at bay. So make sure to carve out time to get those muscles moving before working out and relaxed once done.

Increase your vertical

Georgeann Wells 1984
first official dunk in a college game 

Skills Training: Increase Your Vertical Jump

So you want to improve your "vertical"?  First of all you need a solid foundation of strength. Follow a sound program that develops your strength with basic movements like squats, lunges, dead lifts, and calf raises.  

To make gains in your vertical jump, you have to be able to apply more force into the ground in a shorter time period.  People have the general thought that overall strength makes you jump higher, but the way to get serious "ups" is after you increase your strength then learn to use that force quickly.  In order to develop the ability to apply force quickly, you have to efficiently absorb force via proper landings.  Landing and jumping training will improve your ability to call upon force quickly (ie:Plyometrics).

Jumping is an awesome example of the capabilities of human movement.  The body must fire muscles in a coordinated effort to elevate you from the ground to the rim.  When a large amount of force is called upon in a split second, efficiency is everything.  Being technically sound can have an instant effect, adding inches to your vertical immediately.  Use the plyometric movements below to help. 

4 Exercises to get you on the road to dunking!

1. Shock Jumps

Also known as depth landings or altitude drops. What you do here is find a box equivalent to about the height of your best vertical jump. Next, step off the box and upon contact instantly try to absorb the impact without any movement and without letting your heels touch the ground. Picture a gymnast landing from a vaulting maneuver. You want to land in a powerful, yet quiet manner. Jump away from the box in an equal distance as the height of the box.  You can continue to increase the height of the box until you can no longer land smooth and quiet. You can perform these by landing in a slight knees bent position, or by landing in a deeper squat position. The more knee bend the more the hamstrings and glutes are involved.  Perform 3 reps per set.and 3-5 sets.

2. Depth Jumps 

A depth jump is a carryover from a shock jump and is performed by stepping off the box and then exploding upward upon ground contact. Try to keep the ground contact time short. To find the correct height for you simply find the height that allows you to jump the highest. So if you jump 22 inches from a 12-inch box, 30 inches from an 18-inch box and 28 inches from a 24-inch box the 30-inch box would be the correct height. If you find you can actually jump higher from the ground then you can by preceding your jump with a depth jump then you need to spend some time engaging in shock jumps before you perform this exercise. Perform 3 reps of depth jumps per set and 3-5 sets.

3. Sprints

Very few exercises are as inherently as explosive as sprints. Due to the way sprint training encourages you to develop your leg speed and force transfer capabilities, it is therefore an excellent activity to incorporate into your vertical leap training. I recommend you sprint with maximum speed only once per week. On one other day go out and warm-up and build up to about 70% of your max speed and work on some technique drills. Just don't strain too much during your "easy" session. To increase your acceleration perform 3-5 sets of 3-5 30 yard sprints. To improve your maximum speed perform 3-5 sets of 3-5 60-yard sprints.

4. Vertical Jumps 

There should be no real need to explain this one, but one of the best ways to improve your vertical jump is to practice vertical jumping!  I like to use a "3-steps plus jump" approach. Find a high object you can use as a goal or mark to shoot for. Next take 3 quick steps, jump stop and attempt to touch the object. Perform 3 reps per set with maximum effort for 3-5 sets.

***The goal with the plyometric exercises is to execute the movements with either less time spent on the ground or more height. Each exercise and repetition places a premium on stretching of the muscle-tendon complex, which will boost your reactive/reflexive capacities by increasing your ability to absorb force, stabilize force, and reflexively react to that force. These movements allow you to take advantage and build upon the reflexive forces that come from the plyometric effect.