Welcome to the Empirical Cycling Podcast. I'm your host, Kolie Moore, and today we are joined by our Empirical Cycling coaches, Will and John Carlo, also known as GC. And so if you are new to the podcast, thank you so much for coming to listen. And if you like what you're hearing, consider subscribing to the podcast. And if you are a returning listener, thank you so much for coming back. We love having you back. And if you want to support the podcast, we have several different tiers of support that you can partake of. And the easy one is to give us a nice five-star rating wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps and a glowing review. if you are so inclined, donating to the show because we are totally ad-free. You can do so at empiricalcycling.com slash donate. And our ultimate support tier is if you would like to sign up for coaching or consultation, we are taking on clients. And if you are interested in coaching, please reach out, empiricalcycling at gmail.com or head over to the website and over into the contact form. And there's a lot more information on our coaching up on the website. And if you want to consult with us and you want to keep coaching yourself, we are happy to provide you with the tools to plan and adjust. Your Own Training. And Instagram is where you will ask questions for, I've got a weekend training AMA over there, but also it's where we ask questions for the podcast and that we are going to tackle a bunch of questions from the Instagram today. And so right into the main topic today, we are talking about cramps and we are not talking about any old cramps because there are actually a couple different categories of cramps in the scientific literature. Broadly, they are nocturnal cramps, they are pathological cramps, and they are exercise-associated muscle cramps. And so we're going to talk about the third category. And Will and GC here are consummate crampers. And I dabble myself. I'm not the biggest cramper in the world, but I've certainly had my fair share. I think what I want to do is I want to start with Will. I want to hear about your experience with cramping. And actually, because you are new to the podcast, you are certainly not a new coach with us, but you're new to the podcast. So tell us a little bit about your training history. Like where did your interest in cycling start and kind of where does your interest in sports start really? Yeah. Hi, everyone. Yeah, I came from running. As a mountain biker first, I grew up right next to a really nice area of woods. When I was about 12 years old, decided it'd be fun to try riding my bike in the woods. And fell in love with bikes, but then picked up cross country in high school and college. Cross country running, to be clear. Cross country running, yes. And then you went back to cycling when you got injured, I presume? Standard story that everyone has. No, but no, I dabbled in cycling here and there, you know, throughout my running experience also. And actually, my first big experience of cramping was I decided to, without almost any training, do the Vermont 50 mountain bike race. How many hours did that take? It was about eight hours, I think. That's a good prediction for cramps. I was in pretty good shape for running for a 16-year-old or whatever. But yeah, I was not used to eight hours on the bike and experienced basically every muscle in the leg. Took turns cramping. So that was definitely my first big, big experience that exposed me to that. But as I got more and more into cycling after college, I was primarily a road race at the time. It just always would be a possibility on almost any race that I could find myself cramping. Especially like the early season races, you know, before I've really done a lot of hard efforts, you know, the finish of every race was a big opportunity, you know, and the kind of my most memorable experience is, well, Kolie, I think you've done the Killington stage race. That was my, besides a training crit, that was my very first race. Yeah. Not recommended to do that. It's a really fun race. It's really fun, but not your first race fun, I would say. But the second stage, you know, there's climbing early on, but then it's a long, flat run up from Woodstock to Killington, and then you hit a, you know, 10% grade. going up East Mountain Road. And, you know, every year, you know, it would just be, you know, instantly legs lock up there. And, you know, that would be kind of one of my main focus races. And, you know, would find my, you know, basically, you know, the race riding away from me as I was struggling to turn the pedals over. And, you know, so that would often be enough of a shock early in the season to kind of get... get past worse the cramping, but, you know, it just still was always kind of a risk in every race. Did you have a muscle group that decided to kind of take center stage with the cramps, or was it still kind of everything, like, all at once, and, you know, a rotating cast of muscle cramps? It was a rotating cast. It's always been. Back when I was a runner, used to be calf cramps, primarily. Right, a lot of tension on the calves, yeah. Yeah, perhaps not related. I had my running injury of choice was Achilles injury. Your Achilles heel sucks. It's all related there. But yeah, cycling, it's primarily been hamstrings, but rotating cast characters. But yeah, I started experimenting with different solutions. My kind of most famous concoction was... Oh, actually, hold on. Let's hold on to that because I want to talk about solutions next because I want to get to GC because you have a similarly interesting cramping story but not quite as profligate as Will's cramping. So why don't we talk about your experience with cramps and kind of your history with them and kind of... Then we'll get to things we've tried for solutions. Yeah, I guess my history of cramps seems to be always a very hard, long road race. And I never really paid attention to it that much because it would rarely happen locally when I would race locally. So like maybe it happened once or twice a year. And then finally I decided to use the search function on TrainingPeaks, typed in cramps. And lo and behold, it was every national championships I went to. And I'm like, oh, okay, I see a pattern now. But yeah, that's been my primary experience with cramps. It's not a rotating cast of muscle groups. It always seems to be my inner thighs for whatever reason. So you're adductors, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I don't, I'm not too sure if Kolie, you and I really ever solved this, but so far this season It's not for lack of trying, that's for sure. Correct. So far this season, no cramps. But then again, I don't know. I mean, I think he's definitely related because I live in Colorado and, you know, it takes a long time for it to get hot here. And, you know, when you go to nationals, it's always in the summer and past two years. High Nationals has been in Georgia, which is both hot and humid, which is not, it's very unlike the climate here in Colorado. So yeah, that's been my primary experience with Gramps. Yeah, so I actually wanted to, I did a little bit of digging into literature. I was passingly familiar with it and I didn't get a chance to do a real deep dive, but One of the things that I found in a couple published papers were things that are more associated with cramps, like risk factors. And one of them is greater biological age. So as we get older, we seem to be more prone to cramps. And there may be some confounding variables there, especially with, you know. activity and whatnot because a lot of people as they get older get less active. That's the general population, not athletes. So another factor is greater training age. And so you guys have both been training for, well, GC, I know it's been, you know, like 20-ish years for you. Will, what is it for you, like 20 years also about that? 25. 25, okay, yeah. So yeah, up there in training age, I would say. Other risk factors are, seems to be BMI is related, but also that would, you know, potentially be complicated by, if you've got high BMI, it may be, you know, lack of activity. GC, what's up? Sorry, to clarify, training age, so the bigger training age, the more risk you have? Or vice versa? Yeah, yeah, so more association with cramps with greater training age. R.I.P. Yeah, sorry. One of our listener questions is related along those lines also. Family history also seems to be a risk factor is one of the things. Again, I did not get a chance to do a deep dive, so this is also not a WazDoc podcast, so we're not going to go too into this, but just to note that these things are interesting in a cursory glance at the literature. Also, the last one is stretching time. And so I found this one really interesting because, you know, we'll talk about mechanisms of cramps or potential mechanisms of cramps. They're all just theories at this point still. One of the things that we obviously have to do when we get a cramp is stretch the muscle. And I, you know, because so far as I can tell in the literature, stretching isn't really associated. with, I mean, if you do a lot of stretching, sure, it'll like increase your range of motion, yada, yada, same as like full range of motion strength training, that seems to be a good substitute. But a lot of the time, if you start stretching, like your initial like 20, 30, 40 seconds of stretching, it's, you get, you can get pretty deep in that first like 30, 40 seconds. And that seems to be I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to be that you are actually making your muscles relax and you're getting rid of a lot of passive neural tension in those muscles. Anyway, that's what has been explained to me by people who know more about this than I do, a lot of PTs especially. So that has always been really interesting to me. And that kind of points to certain... Hypotheses about the mechanism of cramps that I think are really interesting. Stretching obviously has worked for me. I actually recently got one of the gnarliest cramps I've ever had in my life doing decline bench crunches. And so I did a set. I get off the bench. I rest for like two, three minutes. I get back on the bench. And as I'm swinging my first leg over to get onto the decline bench, the entire left side of my abs, Like from ribcage down to the groin, like that line of abs cramped up like just like a brick. And I was feeling like hot shit because I was single leg squatting kind of a lot of weight. And then, you know, you're humbled by getting onto a decline bench with 10 pounds in your hand. Not even starting the movement yet, just like just getting on and who I. I felt it for like a week. Anyway, and I'm sure people who've had, in my clients, you know, you get a bad cramp in your quad or your hamstring or the muscle that you don't get a ton of work on, you can feel it for a little while, like it's sore from that level of tension. GC is nodding. Yeah, sorry, I just quickly, a while back in Florida, I was doing a long ride with some of my buddies and at like five, six hours. And of course, being in Florida, it was hot. And coming back, I decided to sprint because that's what you do with your friends, right? And yeah, I think like as soon as I started, I cramped like my calf and that thing was sore for like... Like the Achilles soleless area on one leg was sore for a good week, a solid week, and I was immediately afraid to do much on the bike because of it. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's reasonable. So, yeah, so I, so stretching is like one of the ways to get rid of the cramp in the immediate sense, which is why I was lying on the floor of the gym. trying to shove my fingers into my abs and kind of arching my back and going, oh God, somebody please make it stop. And then Googling like, did I just herniate myself? Which I don't believe I did, but still unpleasant. Let's talk about cramp solutions because this is actually going to point us towards potential cramp mechanisms, which we'll go over in a very cursory fashion. We're not going to do the deepest dive into the literature and whatnot, but I think it'd be interesting to think about the solutions that we have for cramps and what we've tried to do to potentially alleviate cramps ahead of time, to get ahead of them, as it were. So let's start with you, Will. So tell me about your concoction. So my infamous concoction, I just call it Tabasco scratch, which is I would take usually lemon-lime scratch just to balance the flavor profile. He said with a pinky in the air. If I'm doing like a 750-milliliter bottle, I basically do like a double strength for the recommended amount. Sorry, like one and a half strength for the recommended amount. So that's probably like two and a half scoops, something like that, scratch. But then put in like a teaspoon and a half of Tabasco sauce in there. So not just a couple drops. Not just a couple drops. And Tabasco takes a long time to get out of the bottle. Like, you must be sitting there, like, shaking that thing for a couple minutes. It's not too, too long. But it takes a little time. No, I think my inspiration was some of the products on the market, like Hotshot. But kind of a... you know, perusing the kitchen, what's the next best thing? And hotshots are expensive too, especially if you're going to carry like a couple in a race. Yeah. You know, that's one of the things I've, I've heard from a lot of people is like, if you are a cramper and you get past the first cramp, like a lot, cause a lot of people, when they try to go beyond that first cramp, like they haven't done that before and they don't know that there's another cramp around the corner potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I, I would say actually the kind of purpose designed products like Hotshot I have found to be probably better than my solution but you know sometimes you have to make deal with what you can find but yeah I basically try to make it hot enough that it hurts just a little bit it's not the most palatable thing but you know the way I would end up using it is you know have it in You know, not have a bottle of real hydration on the bike, but have sort of, you know, one of the backup bottles such that I can sip it, just kind of, you know, small doses if I'm kind of feeling cramping coming on, and then save a few solid chugs, I guess you could say, for when the rhythm's starting to come on. And I've had a fair amount of success with that. Yeah, it could just be... No, it's hard to say for sure whether that's the magic solution, but at least on a couple times it seems to have made quite a difference, I want to say. Yeah, so that was the genesis of this podcast because you had said, and it stuck with me, that if you know that you're a cramper, just accepting that you're going to cramp and being ready for it, as opposed to doing all the other training stuff that you could potentially do that may or may not work and heading into race day with a big question mark. If you just kind of accept that that's going to happen and you plan around it, it seems to have much better potential outcomes than if you just kind of hope for the best. Yeah, I think it's always hoping for the best. But yeah, definitely trying to There are certain races where you just know it's going to happen. I've been doing more long mountain bike races, and you just know that if I've done a number of climbs and you hit the single track section that's going to be repeated hard efforts, it's going to happen, for me at least. So trying to... that's where I think kind of the the sipping approach is a couple like light doses I think seems to seems to help but then trying to be ready for when those you know heart cramps do do come yeah and I think that I think that the I mean, the preventative approach, I mean, this is something that, because like, I forget, Will, when I was coaching you, did we try any training solutions for cramps? I don't think that I was at that point yet of thinking about training solutions. I don't, I don't think so. So, yeah, it was just a lot of like, like, I think, I think the first time I heard about you cramping was like calf cramps or something. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I don't know what to do about that. That was like, what, the late teens or something like that? Yeah, it sounds about right. I think my... The big memory I have of the Tabasco scratch going into full steam was, you know, 2018 at GMSR. So it definitely had been an issue that had been going on a couple of years before then. Oh, yeah. And that was the year that I think you got... third or fourth on the Queen stage? Yeah, third. Yeah. Third. Yeah. I mean, and I remember that picture from the finish line, too, of you coming up looking like you were, you know, trying to keep Chris Froom away from you in the Tour de France. And it was actually, who was it? Was it Gino coming up behind you? Yeah. Yeah. Gino had like a, you know, two minute. deficit on us. And I just could hear his kind of lead car with a siren going up the mountain behind us. And so just, you know, more pressure as that siren got closer and closer and closer. Did you feel cramps coming on while you were climbing that? And was it Tabasco helping? Or was it like just keeping it at bay, did it seem? Just keeping it at bay, yeah. Nice. Yeah, that, I definitely felt a couple times, you know, starting to seize up. But yes, it stayed controlled that entire day. Yeah, so, and actually, I just heard a couple weeks ago that Pogacar has a bottle that he has for cramps, which is a super, super salty bottle. And it falls under the category of what seems in the literature to be categorized as noxious products, like things that make you kind of pucker or... you know have some sort of like like visceral facial reaction uh so um well GC you've had very different experience um with cramps I I don't I don't remember have you tried any of the uh like spicy hot shot type stuff or uh because you and I we did a lot of potential training solutions because it because it looked to us um like the, it was the combination of the duration and intensity of nationals compared to all the other races that was a bigger factor. And that, that tends to be pretty true across the board is like duration intensity is a big predictor of cramps like in event. Yeah. Um, I know. Yeah. Like you said, we tried to induce cramps in training. Um, I was pretty unsuccessful at that. And yeah, you're right. Like looking at So, you know, once I discovered the pattern of, well, this only happens at nationals, like, what is it about nationals that makes me cramp? And, yeah, it's the duration of the races. The road races are usually two and a half hours, and it looks like I spend, like, a crap ton of time at Sweet Spot or, you know, around that intensity. And so... And higher, a lot of level 5 and 6 kind of... Yeah, yeah, of course, right. You're trying to follow attacks or, you know, me attacking or whatever, right? So, like, all those things kind of add up. Yeah, that being said, like, I have tried the hot sauce stuff. I can't... I don't remember... It wasn't nationals, but I don't remember... I know I did a road race and I took... Oh, I've been taking... I've been taking hot sauce with me when I do road races. I remember I took some at some road race. Again, it was a nationals. Now I'm kind of struggling to remember what the road race was, but I could feel the cramp coming. And I remember I ripped it open and I took some and it was awful because it was already hot and you're putting hot sauce in your mouth and it's just like... It just the taste was just horrible, but it definitely worked. You know, it gave me a moment, momentary sense of relief, and I was able to get past that, like, and to clarify, I wasn't, it wasn't like the onset of cramps. It was like, like that kind of feeling that you get before you're, well, maybe this is me because I have experience with cramps. There's definitely a feeling you get that, you know, you're, you might cramp. and that's what that was. Actually, you know what? Actually, it was Nationals. It was Augusta last year and that's why it was so high. It was just so disgusting. I could feel the cramps coming and I took it. I actually had two because maybe a few minutes later I felt it again and I ripped open another one and I got to the end of the race is what, you know, like. So did you have like Taco Bell hot sauce packets in your back pocket like they were gels? No, no, no. So it wasn't Taco Bell, it was Cholua. I love Cholua. But yeah, any opportunity at a gas station or sometimes at work when they cater food, there's Cholua packets. I'm like, I grab those suckers and just pack them away. I have a little stash in my garage. I mean, like, I don't really have to use them that much, right? So, you know, it doesn't require, you know, like... I'm not like trying to buy a whole pack of these things on Amazon. So yeah, I have a little, a little stash. I'm thinking that the, like the, the mustard that comes at like Chinese takeout, I think that'd be a fantastic. Oh, wasabi mustard. Yeah. That'll clear your sinuses out if nothing else. I actually, I actually, well, I mean, this is bad because I haven't tested this yet, but I have, I have some warheads. single-package warheads. There you go, sour warheads. I'm hoping that that I think or I hope to believe that this will do this as the same mechanism, but the taste will be way better because I like warheads and it's not hot sauce. I will also caution because I've tried the hard candy during a lifting workout and I just feel like it's a choking hazard. Even though I can shut my teeth and stick in the cheek of my mouth like a hamster, it just feels unnatural to have something in there while you're breathing hard. So I would say just suck on it for a minute and then spit it out because it is a choking hazard, especially while you're breathing hard. And you don't want to have to deal with it. Dealing with that as an additional thing on your mind of like, I don't want to choke on this thing, seems like a massive pain in the ass in the middle of a road race. Oh yeah, sorry, Will, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say that I know some, I've heard people using like lollipops, so I need warhead lollipops or I don't know if anything like that exists. I bet there are R. Let's, um, I have a feeling we've got a new product on the market here. Everybody watch out for, uh, for Will's Warhead lollipops. She's holding up the, was that Sour Apple Warheads? Those are the good ones. I'm a fan. Nice. Extreme Sour. Let's go. Um, so this brings us to mechanisms. potential mechanisms before we – because I want to dig in a little bit more on some of the training stuff. But some of the mechanisms are – well, they're all theories at the moment, like I said. The one that a lot of people seem to think – like unless you've been in the exercise world for a little while, it seems that a lot of people are under the impression that electrolytes – are related. And partly because, okay, pickle juice, right? Pickle juice works. It doesn't seem like it's actually electrically related because the reduction of cramps seems to happen over the course of a couple minutes. You get that big drop initially and then relaxation seems to happen a little more as you go. And it takes like, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes to start absorbing those electrolytes and have it actually get to your blood and affect your blood levels. So the time course doesn't seem to match. But the other theory is if you've had like Systems Fizz 101, like day one, you learn about membranes. Actually, just about any kind of biochem or cell bio class, you learn about membranes and you learn about transport over the membranes. And you also learn about electrolytes sequestering across membranes of like sodium, potassium, and chloride. And it stands to reason, based on that knowledge, that if you are sweating out a lot of electrolytes, you're sweating out a lot of water, that your membrane potential could change. Be, you know, that get that much closer to having that action potential fire. However, the body seems to be a little bit smarter than that. Because imagine if we got a little bit dehydrated, and then suddenly, like our, our muscles were ready to fire, that also means that all the other cells in your body would also be have very dangerous levels of, you know, levels of membrane potential. Because it wouldn't just be your muscles, it would be everything. So it seems that in the literature that hypothesis is pretty well debunked by now, that it's not really related to electrolytes. But those noxious type substances that we can adjust, what they seem to do is they seem to cause a reflex. through the nerves that we have in our throat, maybe esophagus, I forget exactly, that seem to relax alpha motor neuron stimulation, excitement, gets them to chill out and gets your muscles to relax a little bit. And so the big question is really what's going on with our nerves really. And so there's two prevailing theories, and I don't have a dog in this fight, so I don't really know, I don't have an opinion on which one is more likely at this point. So there's the spinal origin theory, which is that it's an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory signals that are going to the spinal column. So the excitatory ones are the muscle spindles, and the muscle spindles detect stretch and can send a signal. to the spine to say, hey, you got to contract really quick. Like, isn't this the knee tap reflex? And then there's the inhibitory signals, which is the GCO, the Golgi tendon organ, which detects levels of mechanical tension on the muscles. And if the GCO sense too much tension, it's actually going to inhibit you from continuing to contract those muscles because it doesn't want you to tear anything. And if you've ever driven a car and you've like tried to zing it past redline and the car's got a limiter there, like my old GT350, that would cut fuel as soon as you hit redline, like unless you were in track mode. So it was like, you know, you're going meh and then suddenly it's just like, it feels like you like blew the engine for half a second. the first time you experience it. Because it wasn't like a dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee kind of bouncing off the rev limiter thing. It like cut, it was like, no, no more, stop. Which is, and as soon as the first time that happened, and I realized what happened, I was like, oh, this is just like the GTO in our muscles. Not the GTO muscle car, I don't know. My brain goes immediately to the Pontiac whenever. Yeah. I know. And mine, of course, goes to the Golgi 10 in Oregon because the Pontiac GTO was not one of those cars I was ever interested in. But yes, agreed. So that's another reason that I think that the car analogy is interesting. Sorry. So those two mechanisms, it's basically the imbalance of those two things, right? Because I mean, clearly they're at odds of each other. that would definitely explain like the sensation of cramp, right? Right, yeah. So the prevailing theory in this, which is the central origin theory, because it's related to the spinal column, is that as you fatigue, there's an increase in muscle spindle firing, so more excitation, and there's a decrease in Golgi tendon organ activity, which, so there's a decrease in the, you know, the inhibition side of things. And so if this were the theory, then as you stretch the muscle, you're going to increase the GTO signaling again by putting mechanical tension on those mechanosensors. And that's going to say, okay, hey, we're getting tension on here, so we need to relax so we don't damage things. Because if you're... already cramped, then there's a ton of tension on your muscle already. So that is the prevailing central origin theory. The peripheral origin theory is that there's abnormal excitation of motor nerves, the terminal branches to the muscle. And so this means basically that your fatigued muscles have a problem relaxing. And this actually is a more interesting theory to me, and I wanted to dig into this. But I didn't have time, so we'll save it for another future Wattstock episode. But there's a couple spots along the chain of events between your brain telling your muscle to fire and your muscle firing and relaxing subsequently that are potential candidates for a weak link in the chain. So if you are fatigued, it could be like you are having a problem reuptaking calcium. or maybe acetylcholine or something like that. And there's energetics associated with each one of these steps. And so those are the two big prevailing theories. And if you're thinking, well, the stretching and the GTO thing seems to work really well, I don't think you necessarily have to be of the central origin theory in order for that to provide benefit. So I don't think that just because the stretching helps doesn't necessarily tilt us in favor of the central origin theory. So those are the potential mechanisms here. And I think that it goes a little bit of the way to understanding why stretching and the literature's associations of daily or habitual stretching with less cramps seems to be a thing because let's see, one of the, like I said, I've only dabbled in cramps and one of the times that I was getting cramps most consistently is when I was training really hard for track sprinting and I was actually getting a lot of cramps in my plantar fascia when I was doing heavy squats. And all that went away as soon as I started rolling my plantar fascia on a lacrosse ball and just getting that tension out, all of a sudden, all gone. And then, well, mostly gone. And then I also had to roll my calves because, you know, calf, Achilles tendon, down to the feet, down to the toes, like, they're kind of all connected as my understanding. Yeah, this is kind of interesting because maybe like in real time as we record this and as you're talking, I'm trying to like put the pieces together because that's how my brain works. But like I'm naturally quite flexible and I remember, I don't know, a while back figuring out that like and I would stretch, right? I would still stretch, even though I was naturally flexible. I mean, like, as you can see, like, I'm sitting like this, like, in a full squat. Yeah, you got your knees on your nipples, basically. Yeah, but like, this feels comfortable to me, right? I wish I had that mobility these days. I stopped stretching a long time ago, and now I'm wondering, like, if that's related, right? Where, you know, maybe I do need to implement some kind of stretching. to help with said cramps. I'm wondering if like, it feels like the timing would be about right where, you know, like Nationals 2019 and around the time I'm like, I don't need it. I need more strength training. I don't need to stretch. And I wonder if those things are related now. Yeah, I wonder too, because I've had the exact same thought that you're having now, which is that the, you know, if You know, whatever mechanical tension is on the muscles already with, you know, due to passive nerve tension. Because as my old PT said, tired muscles are tight muscles. And that's one of the reasons that every time I went into PT, the first 10 minutes were always stretching. And I was like, stretching, really? Can we just kind of get into the thing? And he's like, he's like, look, you're injured. We've got stuff to work on. And if you are kind of working through your... Kind of that initial relaxation of those muscles, it's going to take longer to get to where we want to be in those exercises. And I was like, okay, that's reasonable. I'm not an expert enough to refute that. So I'm just like, all right, I'm going to shut up and do what he says. And so that stretching seemed to help a lot. And I still stretch every single day. I spend an inordinate amount of time stretching to manage my injury at this point for various reasons. It does seem to indicate that there's potentially something there because if the mechanical tension on your muscles is related, wouldn't getting rid of some of that passive tension help potentially? So, Will, have you tried the stretching thing? Not specifically. I mean, it's kind of the same thing as GEC. I'm a pretty flexible person, naturally, so I've never really had the thought that I need to stretch a lot more to achieve a position on a bike and everything like that. I used to, as a runner, I used to stretch on a more regular basis. It didn't cramp as much, but I think that might have more to do with the sport and potentially training age. So, no, not exactly. Okay, interesting, because I think that, if nothing else, it's, at worst, we are going to be net neutral if we try to incorporate some stretching into the cramping thing. Why not? Honestly. And I think the other thing that we've tried to do is, you know, because the combination of duration and intensity are predictors of cramps for a lot of people, especially not having trained to similar intensities previously. Like, I remember usually back when I was road racing, the first practice crit of the season, the first Wells Ave, I was – I didn't cramp, but like my muscles were so tired I could – I was kind of like locked up and I could barely unclip from the bike that first crit. And then as the season goes on, it's like, okay, cool. Now I can stand up to sprint without feeling like I got nothing or my legs are locked up, et cetera, et cetera. And like – and I could definitely feel the lack of – the lack of relaxation. That was definitely a thing. But for me at least, it didn't seem to lead to cramps. I've only really cramped in a race once. And what I found – was that it was because it was the longest race I had ever done at that point. I think it was something like 80 miles. And I didn't realize until later that every time I was coasting, I was holding tension to my right calf. And so as the course of that race went on, we hit the last climb and my right calf just like bricked up, just solid cramp. Of course, I've got to like now stand, stretch my calf, stretch my Achilles. And that was the only time I've ever cramped in a race. And that's when I was like, and I could feel it coming on too, but I didn't know that that was a cramp coming on. I could feel something weird happening in my calf. And so like, let's say the calf-specific training for that race was zero. Like very little coasting. and that kind of stuff in races and training previously. So it was just a new experience for me. And I could definitely see how the calf intensity, the calf specific intensity for that race was much higher than I had ever had before. And so it seems pretty reasonable that that's a good predictor of cramps. And generally speaking, that seems to be the case when a lot of people cramp up early in the season, then they... don't cramp up later, especially as they keep racing to similar durations and intensities. If people remember the podcast with James, he always cramps in the heat. We had done a lot of very specific heat training. and what we called cramp induction rides where he would overdress a little bit and then do a bunch of really high intensity efforts in order to get to cramping and we were successful in that and it would seem to keep cramps at bay in races for the next couple weeks but it would also take a little while to recover from so you know we had to be really really careful about when and how we use that kind of stuff and so I wanted to pivot from that to some of the stuff that GC, we've tried for your inner thigh cramping. Because I remember for like a year, you became like the master of Copenhagen planks. So why don't you talk about what those are and how well that did or didn't work? Yeah, well, it's good that you mentioned that because earlier when you're talking about like the Golgi tendon and whatnot, like I was actually in my brain like thinking, I'm like, man, we could, You can devise some kind of really diabolical isometric hold with, you know, muscle stim thing to like induce cramps. But yeah, I mean, the Copenhagen planks, if you've never done them, look them up. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's essentially like a side plank where one let your, the leg closer to the floor is unsupported and you keep it straight by essentially using your adductor. And like I said, it's an isometric hold. You can do reps, I guess, of that, but it feels like it's more effective as an isometric hold in terms of how… Yeah, it's hard to load. Yeah, so imagine, let's say you're going to do a Copenhagen plank on your right leg. So you put your left elbow on the floor and your right knee to start with and then eventually ankle on a bench. And so, like you said, the other leg is unsupported and it's just kind of hanging there. and so the tension is on the leg, the inner thigh of the leg that's on the bench and eventually you can load that if you really want to. You can grab a kettlebell or a dumbbell and put it on your hip and load that or you can do reps like you can relax or lower your hip and then raise it up again and that would use those and so we did that for something like six or eight months before one of the nationals that you went to? Yeah, we would do that, I think, before rides or as part of my, you know, year-long strength training as well. I think I remember, like, it was always, like, the end of, like, a strength training session. It was just the worst. Well, yeah, because you don't want to do that fresh. You want to do that when you're pre-fatigued, when the intensity is higher, because that's when you cramp, right? Right, exactly, yeah, I mean, that was the goal, but still, regardless, just through training, can never get to the cramping, and I mean, honestly, like, now that I think about it, I think it was really just the heat component missing, and sure, I would go dressed, overdressed, but there's just no humidity here, and I think, like, that was the biggest thing, right? Like here is just so dry that even if it's hot, you're able to still evaporate your sweat, right? And cool off that way, even if you're wearing a lot of stuff. I don't know. Just wasn't able to do it. But yeah, we did some pretty diabolical stuff with the Copenhagen plank. It's a great exercise if you want to do it, just in a general sense. But I remember when you actually, so you went to National Engine, you still cramped. And I asked, where did you cramp this time? And I think it was in your quads and not your adductors. I think you're right. So it worked, but it exposed another muscle to, you know, to, you know, maybe like we should have done more. You know, we should have done more in your quads. But like, you don't know, because this is the thing that I've been told by like PTs that happens a lot is like you solve one problem and another crops up that, you know, the main problem was either masking or making up for or something like that. Yeah, totally. I mean, like, and it makes sense, right? Because, you know, If you know me or have ever seen me on the bike, I fold myself into this tiny little ball and get really aero when I ride. And it's not technically how I ride all the time when I'm here, just riding around or an endurance ride. I still am pretty aero in a general sense, but in races, I definitely turn that up a notch. And I think that that's probably related where I'm just using similar muscle groups. kind of differently and over time because of the duration and intensity, you know, like things just like, you know, like you're using something differently and things start to compensate and that that's probably what's really happening. Yeah, and there's an altitude thing with you also in that nationals is usually at a lower altitude and you live in Boulder and so a lot of the time you've got a lot more watts. than, you know, at your disposal on race day than you train with. And that relative intensity seems to be a pretty reliable predictor as well. For you, especially. Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that. I mean, it's... Which is why when you went to your group ride in Miami and you stood up to sprint, like, I, that, usually for you when you go to Miami for group rides, that's like January for you. And like, so you've got a combination of sea level and you probably haven't been training that intensely at that point. So like... Sure, yeah, I could see your legs turning into bricks for that kind of sprint, that kind of effort early season. Yeah, that's another component. I mean, it's like it's so multifaceted as it relates to me, but maybe just in a general sense that, yeah, you can't go quite as deep as you can at sea level than you here at home. And so, like, that's also a thing, you know? Yeah, and we had looked at a couple potential solutions for that. None of them really seemed to pan out. But actually, I wanted to ask you, Will, have you had any, kind of heat or humidity associations here? Or is it mostly just like you just are a consummate calf or hamstring cramper and that's that? I'm not aware of it being related to conditions. Yeah, I think I've cramped well in all conditions. So more of an intensity thing for you. Yeah, I mean the... The one thing I was just reminded of that I think does make a big difference is, you know, a specificity to the bike you're on, too. Yeah, position. Yeah, and, you know, I recently did Whiteface Wilmington, you know, mountain bike race, and did that with a bunch of local friends. And, you know, that's four, a little more than four hours, four to five hours on the bike, we'll say, and, you know, on the mountain bike, and it's, you know, so much of us do so much of our training on a road bike, you know, narrower cue factor, you know, drop bars, you know, different saddle position, and so that's going to train your body to be in one position, then all of a sudden, you know, you're in a mountain bike race doing lots of long climbs, You're asking entirely different muscles to be used in a different manner. And every one of us cramped to some degree, even though we aren't consistent crampers. And so I think some of that is, yeah, you know, if you're on a different bike, you have different, you know, different needs, but also different things to adapt to. That sounds just like my experience with my calf. is my calf wasn't used to that level of whatever, and so it cramped up. And so like, yeah, like if you are in a more aggressive position, like, you know, it could be your back, it could be your glutes. Well, actually, I've never heard of glutes cramping, but like hamstrings easily, quads, adductors. I've almost had a cramp in my glute medius, so that's a fun one. But you know what's funny is the, as far as I could tell, while this is referenced in one of the papers I read, is that one of the first cases in the literature of cramping was documented in like the early mid-1900s, like 19 aughts, not like 19, you know, not the first half of the 19th, 20th, 1900s, not like 1900 to 1950. We're talking like 1905 or something like that, where the, it was documented in mine workers in hot, high humidity conditions. And so this always makes me think that there's, in some people, could be easily a, you know, one of those environmental components. And I think if that's you, then I think doing some heat training to prevent cramps and maybe, because normally I don't suggest heat training while you're doing intervals, because your interval quality starts to tank. and for most people, heat training doesn't need to be during intervals. But I think if you are somebody who reliably cramps in the heat and always just in the heat, this may be a good solution among all the other things that we've talked about so far. So I think we've got a pretty good list so far in terms of, you know, Will's wacky hot sauce solution, you know, specific strength training of muscles that cramp a lot, positional. specificity, you know, heat training, you know, potentially like cramp induction rides where you try to ride to the duration and intensity of your races. Did I miss any that we've kind of discussed so far? Stretching, stretching, potentially. I think none of us have really tried the stretching thing, so. You know, when we were talking about the stretching thing, I actually, I'm kind of curious because this made me think when Will said that he's also quite flexible. I wonder if it would be worth putting up a poll on your Instagram and like, you know, like asking like, do you cramp? And like, are you like, yes, I'm flexible. No, I'm flexible. Like maybe like a couple of options just to see what pops up. Because here's the thing is I don't necessarily think that that your flexibility and mobility are. Just the same way that, like in a way, it's like, okay, you're very flexible. Does that mean that your muscles never get tight and tired? I don't necessarily think that those two things would, yeah, because I think what we'll find, not that it's a scientific poll in any way, but I think that we would find no association there, most likely. Or if there was an association, it would be modest at best. But that's me spitballing, and I'm totally ready to be wrong on that or anything, really. So I wanted to get to some listener questions because we got some really, really good ones. But before we do that, is there anything that we kind of wanted to touch on and didn't, did we forget or any thoughts you had that we need to? A quick thought I had, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a question along these lines, is my standard advice for people cramping? is to just keep pedaling. And, you know, I often see people, you know, make a big deal out of it. At what intensity would one keep pedaling? Anything that you can do, really? Yeah, yeah, I, this is my experience, at least, is, you know, you feel a cramp come on, the worst thing you can kind of do is panic about it, and like hop off the bike and, you know, dance around and like, you know, you know, roll around on the ground. Well, that's not going to help you. Staying in the race. And also just stopping pedaling can cause that cramp to take full effect, whereas continuously stretching it by moving through the range of motion seems to help to minimize its effect. And I find although it's a major interrupter of a a large output. I could still use to put out, you know, an 80% effort, we'll say. So instead of like, you know, trying to follow a move at like, you know, 400 watts or something, and you're like kind of redline, it's like you'll follow at like 350, 360, which for you is probably about threshold or something like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. in reality would be lower than that in terms of how much I can, maybe my 80% estimates. Okay. You know, don't, I guess I mean, if it's like a 300 watt and let somebody else close the move type of thing, you know, it can usually maintain a reasonable output just fighting through the cramp. While sucking down your Tabasco sauce. Yeah. I guess my point is the more you just – especially if you take the approach of accepting the fact that it's happening and try to keep pedaling rather than panicking about it. No, that's – I think that's the better approach to survive a race. Yeah. Okay. Good thought. All right. Our first question is from my good friend Chris. I've cycled for 20 years, got my first cramp two years ago. Now they show up on most two-plus-hour rides. What the fuck? Well, chronological age and training age seem to be predictors. And also, I know that my buddy Chris here does a lot of yoga. And so very flexible chap right there. So I would actually be thinking about, you know, if there's nothing that's really changed in your life recently, think about adding in some... Well, if you're getting enough specific stretching, I would want to think about potentially, you know, maybe heat or nutrition even. Because I think, you know, if you are tired from not eating enough, I could see that, you know, increasing relative intensity of your experienced output. And so that, you know, just by... Logical Induction would seem to predict cramps possibly. So I don't have a great solution here, but you are of the biological and training age where literature suggests you are more likely to cramp. So sorry about that. I like this next question. More sodium makes me cramp more, or is this just a coincidence because I add more when it's hot? Do you see you're nodding? Why don't you elaborate? Well, I mean, I think we kind of touched upon that, right? It's environmental factors. I think that they're conflating the sodium with the heat, and it's probably the heat that's really causing this, and not necessarily the more sodium. But then again, I'm not too sure where they live either, so... Well, right in the username, it says .nyc, so... Ah, well, they're hitting some 100 plus degrees over there. I used to live in New York City, and it gets... Hot and humid there. So for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. And like I mentioned earlier, I heard that Pogacar has a very salty bottle that he gets when he's feeling crampy. And so, you know, I would think that if you are adding in a lot more sodium into your bottles and you're kind of getting that kind of taste, then like that would potentially help. But, you know, the question is also like, what does somebody consider more sodium? you know for some people having like 200 milligrams in a bottle is very different than some people having like a thousand and for some people like I'm a I love a high sodium kind of bottle like I used I usually add a little sodium citrate to my scratch bottles in the summer especially and so like you know a thousand milligram sodium bottle for me is like no big deal and for somebody else that might be insanely salty so yeah so potentially I would say that that's more of a problem of a confounding variable. Oh, what about post-ride cramps? Are there preventions and fixes? I would say for post-ride cramps especially, this is where I find stretching actually is very beneficial because tired muscles are tight muscles. I got to remember my PT's full name and give him full credit for this one or maybe somebody else. He's quoting somebody else. I don't know. But yeah, I would say you're tired at that point. Maybe eating more on the rides would help a lot, but also like, yeah, this is where a good post-ride stretch would probably go a long way towards relieving some of that initial neural tension on your muscles. Ooh, does a stitch in the ribs count as a cramp? Do those have similar explanations? So I actually saw this question earlier and the three of us chatted about it and none of us really know the origin of what a side stitch is. I've never experienced one. I don't think you guys have either. So it seems to be related to either the abdominal muscles or maybe the intercostals or maybe even your diaphragm cramping up. And your cramping diaphragm sounds positively diabolical. I think I would rather take a full torso ab cramp over a diaphragm cramp. But if it is indeed a cramp, I would say yes, but like how do you stretch your diaphragm? I don't really know. Is this, do you have to Heimlich maneuver yourself? Any ideas? I got nothing. All right. Okay. We got nothing. Sorry. What's with foot cramps? I don't think I'm overworking my toes. Will, you come from running. You've experienced something similar probably. Thoughts on foot cramps? I would probably guess it's going to have to do with, you know, actually if there is a lack of support in the foot. So you might not feel like you're overworking your toes, but you probably are. Oh, like weak arches? Yeah, exactly. Or even if not necessarily weak arch, if you're... Tight calf. Yeah, tight calf, if you are even finding yourself at all, trying to hold your foot in position to... If, say, you have too wide of a chute or something like that and you're having to grip to stay in position. Speaking personally, I have a narrow foot. I mean, and that's why, you know, a lot of fitters, first thing they'll do is put somebody in a, you know, a good arch support. Yeah, or it could be, yeah, if there's just some flexibility in the arch and, you know, causing that to pronate. That's a good answer, but yeah. No, I've actually had a similar but opposite experience where I've got fairly wide feet. Like I need a really wide toe box. And if I put on a shoe that's too narrow, my toes will cramp, my foot will cramp. So I don't know what's going on there physiologically speaking, but it seems to be a thing where, yeah, like you may want to, especially, you know, over a longer ride when your feet swell up, you know, maybe that's... potentially related. So I would, I think, yeah, maybe looking at shoes or just rolling your calves out and rolling out your plantar fascia, like on a lacrosse ball or something, would be good places to start. But again, we're not PTs. This is just spitballing here based on our experience. Sorry, could I add something to that real quick? Oh, yeah, sure. While I go read the next question. Yeah, yeah. I agree that it might be, well, I feel like it might be shoe related, whether, you know, you need an insert. for your, your, sorry, what's the planter fascia, right? Yeah, your arch. Yeah, your arch, thank you, right. I think that for this user, maybe pay attention to when you're going hard on the bike and, sorry, when you're going hard on the bike and see if you're crunching your toes, right? If you're doing this with your toes, we're on the podcast, yeah, if you're just like gripping with your toes. as that might be related. Yeah. Yeah, potentially some of, all of the above. Cramp induction rides is our next question. Cramp induction rides. Do you think cramps cause adaptation rather than all the riding? And if so, why? I don't, I actually don't necessarily know what the mechanism is of of higher intensity. I mean, it just seems like fatigue, right? Since fatigue is a good predictor of cramps, then getting yourself to the point of fatiguing to a certain point where you would cramp seems to train you better. So I don't necessarily think it's related to the cramps themselves. as opposed to like just a training stimulus. Oh, how do I train to induce cramps only happens two to three hours into a race for me? So yeah, like cramp induction rides are a lot of very, very, very high intensity efforts over the course of a longest ride. And if you've got nowhere else to start, like if you don't have like this race is like, you know, 10 times up a two-minute climb. Like, I would start there. You know, grab a couple buddies and, you know, kind of smash up the climb like you're racing. And in between, like you're racing also, like have a couple people attack and things like that. So that's one easy way to induce your cramps. But if you got nothing else, I would look at seeing how much time over threshold you spend or like how many sprints, how many matches you burn, any kind of way you want to break that out. and think of trying to replicate that under similar conditions. It's very, very hard to do because obviously if you spend a lot of time surging in a race, then doing steady efforts over threshold are not going to be the same thing, which is one of the reasons that having a little better idea of your actual race demands, I'd say, are a better place to start with a cramp induction ride should you need such a thing. It's worth trying, but again, like I said with James, they're very, very fatiguing. With strength training health though, like prior to the ride? I would say potentially strength training in order to like pre-fatigue your muscles would actually be a not a bad way to consider a cramp induction ride. I've never specifically done that other than like GC, you and I have done that with your Copenhagen planks before rides, but I don't necessarily remember those doing those to start ever really leading to you potentially cramping in them during the ride. So, yeah, you're shaking your head. No, but it was just, it was just an idea. I mean, for, personally, we had it, we tried it. Yeah, didn't seem to work with you, but Will, do you think that would work? Well, I guess the thought, I, I'm not sure about strength training before, but I'm just trying to think of, you know, cramp induction. And I've had people do sort of, you know, some of the, you know, repeated sprint type workouts. And, you know, people have reported, you know, cramping the first time we do the workout and then not later on. And I think just, or not cramping later. Yeah, in subsequent workouts. Yeah, thank you, thank you. And so I think there can be just some, some practice of gaining very use to those hard intermittent efforts. That can often lead to cramping. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, again, more in favor of the hypothesis of training intensity and duration are big predictors of cramps. So, yeah. Okay. Moving on. Next question. Are cramps related to muscle relaxation and ATP rather than contraction? Potentially. I don't know necessarily about ATP. Our cells really like to keep ATP in a pretty narrow range, and if it falls too far, then the cell will die. But in terms of just general energetics of relaxation, that is actually the peripheral theory of muscle cramps. So potentially. Nobody really knows at this point. And one of the later questions we got that we may or may not have time to get to is related to why are the causes still a relative mystery? Because measuring these things in cells is very, very, very difficult, especially if we're measuring things in neuromuscular junctions, so between the cells, like between the nerve ending and the muscle that will receive the signal. People are working on it. And other than that, I don't know exactly where the experimental technology is in this stuff because I haven't dug that far into the literature. But I would imagine there's some kind of technical limitations on this kind of stuff. So next question is, pickle juice, does it work to... to consume it preemptively or only after onset of cramps. So Will, actually, your wacky Will's concoction, does that seem to help prevent if you are sipping it or is it going to kind of happen regardless? I'm inclined to say it can help prevent – I usually will take it when I notice that slight crampy feeling. and so I find if I kind of sip it, that seems to have helped reduce the risk of full cramping. I can't speak to taking a big chugging bottle of Tabasco sauce before a ride and whether that eliminates all cramping. My guess is kind of using it using it when you start to feel that onset of cramping might be the most effective. Yeah. Okay, cool. I have nothing to add, so I've never experienced this. And this is Tabasco, not pickle juice. Yeah, but I would assume it would be similar, but you'd have to have an entire bottle of pickle juice, I guess, to make this worthwhile. And actually, I've seen handles of pickle juice. Um, like, like you would get like a, like a little flask of like liquor. I've seen pickle juice like in that, and that would actually be pretty reasonable to stick in your back pocket during a race. Um, it's, they look pocket sized. So, um, the question here is what am I putting in my drink mixes to help eliminate cramps? Tabasco or Cholua, I guess. Alright, here's a question. I have a hard time telling a difference between cramps and just tired legs during a long ride. Well, congratulations, my friend. You've never cramped. It's pretty obvious when it happens because it's, let's just call it living rigor mortis. Not the fun kind. I only get these racing due to surging, I think. What's the best way to train this and prep for a race? So Will, you've talked about repeated sprints. What is the repeated sprint workout you've given people? Because I love repeated sprint workouts. I give them all the time. So what's the specific one that you were thinking about that you've assigned somebody that seemed to work to prevent cramps with surging? Just 15-15s. So what's the intensity and duration here? They're basically the 15 seconds on at 150%. Roughly, give or take. Yeah, of threshold. And then, you know, soft pedaling for the off. And kind of, you know, treating it as a, you know, 8, 8.5 out of 10 overall interval. Okay, so like a pretty hard, but not maxed. And like, what's the duration of the sets? 15 seconds, excuse me, 15 minutes. So like two or three 15 minutes sets? Yeah, exactly. Cool. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty standard 15-15s work. And some people can do a lot more. Some people can do a lot less. So your results may vary. I'd say think about this one more as like an RPE. GC, have you thought, well, because you've been racing for so long, like road racing for so long, that like the surges are like, you know, you've been doing this since you were. got like 15, something like that. So you're probably like pretty well trained at the surges, but do you think that there's anything here also? I mean, you know, trained to the demands of the race, right? There's something to be said about that. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you... You've spoke about this in your podcast. There's people who need race efforts before the season starts to get ready for the races. And then, like, I think, you know, you said that Katie's unlike that, that she could just go from FTP works just straight to races. And I seem to be the same way. That being said, I did, in lead up to nationals, which is this weekend, by the way, I did kind of change up my training and started doing 30-30s, like three times, three times 20. 30-30s at around 150%. And, you know, I didn't cramp. But, yeah, just because the correct course for Master Nationals this year is quite – it's not like a perfect 30-30 course, but it's kind of close. And so I just wanted to be able to – Yeah, we can get close enough with that kind of stuff, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I've never been, I've never had issues with that, I guess. And honestly, I think some of that is probably due to, of course, just me racing for something that honestly makes some of that strength training year round too, where I could just, you know, like kind of like do those kinds of efforts, right? Like it's just always kind of there for me. Yeah. All right. So we're going to get to our last question. Do cramps have a genetic component as in muscle fiber type? Well, it seems like in the literature, Cramps do have a genetic component in that there seems to be, from what I read anyway, just cursory reading, is that there may be a family history component there. But I don't think it's related to fiber type necessarily. There's a maybe with that because type II fibers seem to have a higher just passive tension on them already. But I don't necessarily think that... I've in terms of the people where I can reliably say these are these people are very very fast twitchy or very very slow twitchy I don't think that there's necessarily a relationship with cramping that I can tell but this is also me just going by my butt dyno this is just my general gut on this and I again I could be completely wrong but I don't especially with knowing what I know about muscle fiber type I don't necessarily think that that's going to in terms of also relative intensity experience. We can have very well-trained Type II fibers, aerobically trained. And so I don't necessarily think that having Type II fibers precludes you from being well-trained. So I don't think there's anything there really, but again, I don't think that there's evidence here for that. Yeah, I want to add, I think... In the Discord, you and I kind of landed on this as a possible reason for cramps is that, you know, like I said earlier, it seems like I only cramp at nationals and nationals is pretty important to me. And maybe there's a mental component where maybe I'm placing so much emphasis on stress. Yeah. And there's something there maybe, but also maybe just because I am possibly so stressed at nationals because I want to do well. I'm kind of thinking about what you were saying earlier about the coasting in your calf. Maybe even I'm just because I'm stressed, I'm like constantly tense tense. Yeah, thank you. And I'm just not even aware of it. Right. So maybe maybe there's something there too. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of things that could be subconsciously happening there, and I think we would probably need a lot more research to really say for sure if there's a relationship there. But yeah, I'd say it's not out of the question because I think this is one of the things that I think happens in heat and humidity is the relative intensity increases for the same absolute intensity. 250 watts, you know, for me, when it's like 50 Fahrenheit out is very different than 250 watts for me when it's, you know, 110 out and, you know, 70, 80% humidity here in the South. So the relative intensity that you experience might be a little higher due to the relative conditions. And so I could easily see stress being one of those conditions. And so, what can we do about it? I don't know, probably talk to a good sports site, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure. That's far from my area of expertise. All right. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming to the podcast and talking about cramps. And I had a really good time. This was very informative for me as well. And again, if you want to work with us, work with any of our fine coaches, Will and GC, we have a couple open spots. So if you want to work with them or anyone else, empiricalcycling at gmail.com. If you want to ask a question for the podcast, follow me on Instagram at empiricalcycling. And if you want to support the show, empiricalcycling.com slash donate. You can also consult with us and you can also give us a five-star rating where you can listen to podcasts. and I guess that's all our usual stuff so I guess we'll see you all next time.