Looking for some knowledgeable advice for training to reduce leg cramps on hard, long rides. It’s something I’ve always suffered from.

Current riding is generally a couple of hours, 3, 4, 5 times a week. Mixed intensity, some easy, some hard, some intervals, pretty standard stuff.

Once or twice a week I’ll do longer rides, 3-4 hours mostly, but occasionally longer at zone 2 or 3, maybe with some harder efforts in there.

I have a basic understanding of training, so try to balance the zone 2 type endurance stuff with shorter mixed intensity rides, and for the most part it works for me. My fitness is good, I can ride a couple of hours full gas no problem, compete in TTs, etc.

But if I set out hard on a long ride, I know I’m going to be crippled by cramp at the end.

What I’m unsure about, is how to train for this, because you have it drummed into you that long rides should be lower intensity and if you’re doing them hard on a regular basis, the amount of recovery required will negate any benefit. Or am I reading too much into that and should I just get out and do some long hard rides?

The research I’ve done into cramps previously suggest that the whole nutrition and electrolyte thing is a fallacy as random parts of your body would cramp under these circumstances. The general consensus seems to be that legs cramps while cycling are down to nothing other than muscle fatigue. So how do you train for say, a 6 hour ride at race pace, when ordinarily your legs start twinging 3 hours into it?

There does seem to be a consensus that some are more prone to it than others, so perhaps it’s just me?

I think it’s just down to muscle fatigue. I’ll get cramp in (usually) one of my legs after about ten hours of riding. Bloody agony but I know if I keep going and manage it then it subsides and subsequent days’ riding will be fine.

I find I’m getting cramps more as I get older, whether this is down to reduced muscle mass or something underlying I don’t know. I had cramps in both legs and both hands at some point on this weekend’s JennRide but one of those muscles was slightly cramping on Saturday morning before I got up!

I was sceptical of the electrolyte thing (but stuck a tablet in for placebo purposes) until recently when I forgot my bottle and bought a bottle and filled with normal tapwater. Cramps set in after three hours. Normally I never get them even on a full day ride, although post-ride cramping makes getting off the sofa a risky business.

Most of it will be down to insufficient nutrition / hydration

I don’t cramp except in my feet. Odd I know but it seems to be brought on by long hard endurance rides. I even cramp sometimes during rest or sleep after rides. I don’t think anything’s wrong. Like you the whole hydration diet thing seems to be debunked. Although the lack of either may make you more prone to cramp.

My only suggestion would be to be active on the bike. Change position regularly, stand, sit. Take a quick off the bike moment to walk. This might offset the cramp. I’d try different things and see if any helps. I’m not sure if your prone to cramp you will entirely be free of it

Take a quick off the bike moment to walk.

If I ride steady, it’s never an issue. Touring I’ll ride from dawn till dusk each day. It’s physically tiring of course, but I only ever experience cramp when ramping up the pace. And in a scenario when I’m doing a 3+ hour ride against the clock it’s always the cramp that slows me down before anything else, where by the end I’m outputting way below my power threshold just to keep the cramps at bay, dreading every climb, wondering if I’ll make it over the top.

I used to race [motorbike] enduro. I had real cramp problems which I solved by carb loading and drinking a load of fluids the day before and the morning of the race. Pre-race pissing was an issue though, and I had the ‘do I just fill my boots’ moments at the end of the race on occasion.

Most of it will be down to insufficient nutrition / hydration

I get the same symptoms as the OP after about 4.5 hours or so. For me, it’s down to fuelling. I can fend it off with copious amounts of simple carbs during the ride. So for example stopping at a garage and downing plenty of sugary soft drinks. On the Ridgeway Double I got tired and crampy, then at the halfway point stuffed my face with sugar and ended up riding the third quarter feeling much stronger than the second.

The research I’ve done into cramps previously suggest that the whole nutrition and electrolyte thing is a fallacy as random parts of your body would cramp under these circumstances.

I’d always assumed that it was a combination of muscle fatigue and electrolyte balance issues and that the legs were affected because they’re the most fatigued muscle group when cycling.

If you haven’t tried using an electrolyte drink on long rides, it’s maybe worth a go. If it works, you’re sorted. If it doesn’t, it’s not cost much and you can spend the money you’d otherwise have wasted on hydrotabs or whatever on beer 🙂

I should add that I don’t do many 4.5 hour rides. It’s also far worse for me on road, seems to be the sustained pedalling that makes it worse.

I only get cramps during the longer rides when my fitness has taken a down turn or more specifically I’m not used to the miles at higher intensity.

Example yesterday’s club run – 4.75 hours cramp in both feet and quads and hamstrings weren’t too great either.

I’d been off the bike for a month due to mechanical and/or holiday, 4 weeks previous and I’d done a similar ride (only 10 TSS difference) without any problems.

Nutrition is relatively easy to test so I guess I’ll try fuelling a bit more next time, see what happens. In terms of hydration, I normally have a High5 Energy drink in the bottles on a ride like that.

Current fitness level is pretty much as good as it has ever been.

I think it’s probably not directly electrolytes, nutrition and hydration. But without those then you’re going to get fatigued and cramped.

Might be wrong but I get a lot less cramp when eating properly and drinking lots.

Electrolytes I tend to only use in hot weather as I find I dehydrate without them and even drinking pints of water just makes me piss without actually retaining any so it ends up taking 24h or more to recover the weight of water I’ve lost. A few electrolyte tabs (never the 1x per 500ml they recommend, maybe 1 per 90min of riding in hot weather) and everything’s normal.

For me, what’s always worked is a bottle of tonic water before the ride. I’ll sip a bottle of water too. I end up pissing a load during the ride, but have not suffered from cramp after doing this.

Only in one leg. But I’ve had 2 major ops on it. So I’m thinking it’s poor blood supply due to scar tissue

Suffered some bad cramps when riding sometimes when riding harder than usual and sometimes almost random on a ride done plenty of times and just going easy…also get random night cramps

this article in cyclingtips is a good read and I’m a convert

Pickle juice, the cure for muscle cramps?

even if its just in the mind…my essentials for a multiday hilly ride in the sun:

I get it too after a good long ride…got a big event in the Alps coming up and i’m not worried about fitness but am worried about cramp. I can manage it for a while so never stopped me from completing a ride but just not pleasant, slows things down a lot. I’ve been doing some googling and it seems modern science doesn’t really understand it but the consensus is it is probably down to nutrition and hydration. Makes sence as last weekend I was on a big ride and was running low on water in the last 20 miles or so, so was rationing it and got cramp on the last big climb. The advice from the organisers of the big event i’m doing recommends half a litre of water an hour as a minimum, and i’m normally consuming way less than that so i’ll be making sure i’m taking on the water with electrolytes during the event.

Not sure that fatigue is an issue. I’ve had cramp when I’ve been fatigued and when I’ve not been fatigued, sometimes I’ve not had it at all, so doesn’t seem to be a direct correlation to fatigue with me.

I’ve had cramp on an off throughout my life but especially as a teen/twenty competitive swimmer, the worst being stomach cramp in the pool. However in the last year or so I’ve been using Precision Hydration PH1500 to ward off night cramps after consecutive LBT and Step classes and this has been largely successful. There’s plenty of information on their website and the costs are relatively low so why not give it a try and see if it works for you?