Repost Abdominal Muscle Cramping/Locking

[bigguns175]

Hey I posted a little while back about some muscle cramping and it hasen't gone away.  Taurine didn't help.  It really is only bad in my abdominal area;  I sneezed today and my abs just cramped and locked for like 20-30 seconds it was horrible.  Sometimes if I bend over or bend  and contract abs hard they will spasm and cramp.  If I am doing crunches they can cramp...  I haven't worked out my abs directly in the last 2 or 3 months because of it. If I flex my abs and curl my torso I can send them into a cramped locking state.

It's really ridiculous I think and especially to be really only in the abdominal region (site-specific) I find unusual.  My biggest concern is that one day they will seize or cramp and tear.

Is there anymore suggestions you guys might have.... has anyone experienced this before or is it only me ?

[Arnold jr]

I dealt with this for a long time back in 2008 and I feel your pain, it is one of the worst things imaginable. I tried taurine and I tried drinking aloe which is supposed to help but it did nothing. It got so bad that I couldn't sit up in bed or my abs would cramp up, I had to just roll out each morning. And anything that caused my body to tense up in that area, you know, like sexy time, would result in cramps...nothing like lying there with your girl and being near tears because of the pain...one time the cramps got so bad it actually made me throw up, at that point I went to the doctor.

Two things, my blood work showed I had very low sodium, I wasn't purposely trying to keep my sodium low but I wasn't getting enough. When everything you eat is fresh and if you add little salt this tends to happen. Also, I wasn't getting enough fiber in my diet, I had been on a keto diet for a time when this first started and had forgone fiber supplements...huge mistake.

Advice, fiber and salt. If your problem is the same as mine this should take care of it. If not, something else is going on and you need to go to the Dr. BTW, even after I added the salt and fiber it took a few wks for everything to work right again...it didn't fix itself right away.

[bigguns175]

Thanks a lot arnold jr.  That is the exact scenario the whole getting out of bed thing and everything.... I'll reevaluate my diet and try to add in that necessary fiber and salt.  Try and be more consistent.  I was leaning away from high fiber stuff because I feel the starchy foods tend to fill up my muscles better and digest faster so I can get more calories but I'll have to add some of that good ole fiber richness back in and I Maybe start eating some deli turkey or chicken those tend to be loaded with sodium maybe a burger or two.... Usually hear people with too much salt in your diet hard to believe one could have too little with all the salt in foods now a days.  I'll give it another 3-4 weeks if no improvement I'll maybe stop by the ole doc.  THANKS AGAIN !!!

[tbombz]

for a hard working bodybuilder theres not really such a thing as "too much salt" in your diet. i mean, at a point it would be excessive, but with the amount of sodium our bodies our going through and sweating out we need alot just to replenish, and excess salt on top of that wont do any harm besides some mild and temporary elevation in blood pressure, but it might actually help by increasing water retention.

[Arnold jr]

Thanks a lot arnold jr.  That is the exact scenario the whole getting out of bed thing and everything.... I'll reevaluate my diet and try to add in that necessary fiber and salt.  Try and be more consistent.  I was leaning away from high fiber stuff because I feel the starchy foods tend to fill up my muscles better and digest faster so I can get more calories but I'll have to add some of that good ole fiber richness back in and I Maybe start eating some deli turkey or chicken those tend to be loaded with sodium maybe a burger or two.... Usually hear people with too much salt in your diet hard to believe one could have too little with all the salt in foods now a days.  I'll give it another 3-4 weeks if no improvement I'll maybe stop by the ole doc.  THANKS AGAIN !!!

Oatmeal, just adding that back in my diet did wonders for me. Now I will go on another keto diet in the future, maybe sooner than later, I haven't decided as to the when yet, right now I'm simply enjoying life and training again but when I do the oats will be gone but I can promise you a good fiber supplement will be in place and because nothing I eat when I do keto diets is processed, I will be taking salt tablets.

Let me know how it goes for you. I've had 7 broken bones in my life, a knee and ankle surgery, a twisted vertebra and the abdominal cramps are by far the most painful and make all that other stuff almost a pleasurable joy.