- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous
physical therapist on the internet.
- Our opinion, of course, Bob
- Brad, today, we're gonna talk
about top three ways to treat muscle spasms or cramps.
Basically, we're talking about
that charlie horse quite often
that you get in your calf muscle, maybe at night.
Now, generally these things are harmless, right?
So I don't want you to panic when you get one
- But they are painful
- But they can be very painful.
And if they're very persistent and very painful
then you should see your doctor, right?
Quite often, some of the common cause is probably
one of the most common causes is medications
- Side effect.
- Yep. A side effect of blood pressure medications,
oral contraceptives, cholesterol, lowering medications.
- Sure.
- Those are also the kind and diuretics.
- Okay, things that make you go pee.
- Yep. That they're drawing the water out of your system.
The other thing is, if you, if you're low on potassium
or magnesium, that would also maybe play a role.
- Right. So make sure you get vegetables, bananas
that kind of stuff.
- So you're looking at those things
but we're gonna give you top three ways first to
help prevent it.
And then, then we're gonna talk about three things
you can do if it does occur anyway.
So the first thing you wanna make sure to try to
prevent it is another really common cause is dehydration.
- Sure.
- So you wanna make sure you're keeping hydrated
during the day, drinking some regular water on a, on a
I mean, regular water, right?
Drinking water on a regular basis.
So you'll often see football players
that get cramped up, you know, when they get dehydrated
or they're working, overexertion can do it too, by the way.
So the second thing you want do is you want to, right
before you go to bed, you're gonna do a couple
exercises that I want to see you do.
And one of 'em is okay, Lonnie, why don't you come on?
Do you wanna move that chair outta the way, Brad?
One is real simple to do.
It's just gonna do some ankle pumps like this.
Brad, it's just gonna get a little movement in the calf.
- Yep.
- And it's gonna get loosened up before you go to bed.
And this quite often helps prevent those
charlie horses from coming.
- How many? About 20?
- Yeah. You can do 20 just for a minute
- And probably emphasize on the pulling up motion.
- Exactly.
- And then what you wanna do is go ahead and do a stretch
to it.
You're gonna just take a towel like this and you're gonna
get the towel around the four foot.
You got this Lonnie and you're gonna pull
toward you give a gentle stretch toward you
- Wow. Oh my those feet Bob.
- Yeah I know. Don't get too close.
It's a problem. All right.
The other thing you can do, by the way, we have just
done a video on this, on a, how to make your do it yourself
incline board.
And this is Brad, Mr. Handyman was showing how to do this.
- Sure.
- And Brad, do you wanna show how to use your thing here?
- You bet you can buy these anywhere online.
And you can go to some sporting good stores
- Ankle stretch incline board.
Is that what you'd look up? Maybe?
- Yeah. Incline border ankle stretch.
Either one will probably pull it up.
I like to have something to, to hold on to
so you can really relax.
And this is pretty aggressive.
You know, if you're an older person or not real active
this might be too aggressive for you.
- You could start on it slowly.
- Yeah. You can start back here and then it's not so bad.
And then the further you bring your foot up,
the more aggressive.
- You even bend your knee too can't you
- Yep. Little bend in the knee gets a different muscle.
Gets that Solis muscle.
- It's a nice little thing I think to have near the bed.
And you can do that stretch.
So alright. Despite all.
Oh, the third thing you can do by the way is
is actually you wanna untuck the covers
on the edge of the bed because that's those covers.
- Here, let's demonstrate here, Brad.
- Those covers are holding the foot down like this.
- These are them big, heavy covers in the wintertime.
Kind of the weight is forcing the
- Ah, right now.
Actually you got, it does make you wanna almost cramp up.
So you want to take all the stress off that area.
So you wanna make sure the end of the covers are untapped.
- Get some light fluffy covers.
- Yeah, fluffy.
- Or put big winter socks on and then
you can pull the covers above your feet.
- That's right. I don't have to have any
covers on you at all.
All right.
Let's say despite those preventative measures
you still get a cramp.
So the first thing you're want to do when you get a cramp
and some of you probably know this already is you're gonna
you know, get off the edge of the bed
and you're gonna try to put some weight
on the foot itself to try to get that cramp, to calm down
- Essentially stretching the muscle.
- Yep.
And if you can try to put some weight on the foot and
if you really can go ahead
and bend the foot like this, got all this Lonnie
- Stretch that muscle out.
- Yep. Now let's say that's just too aggressive for you.
That that's just too much.
Well then just try to pull the toe toward your head.
- Yep.
- Just gently try to pull it toward you and
and see if that helps calm it down.
If that's all too much
even you can just manually try to massage the muscle
or you can even just jiggle a muscle, you know
just trying to get it moving like this.
Now after you got things calmed
down and then things are still kind of hurting
you can go ahead and put cold or heat on it.
You can have an ice pack or a heating pad.
If you've had one by the bed
- Whatever you respond better to.
- Yeah. But just please don't fall asleep
with a heating pad on, right.
People can get burned by those.
You can do a hot shower, a warm bath
anything like that to help, help calm down.
Right. So those are some of the, you know
non maybe more conservative ways of trying to
treat this issue instead of getting aggressive about it.
- Right.
So I, I can tell you from my experience
if I've gotten them in bed and immediately I just
start pulling my toes up like this while I'm in, under
you know, with the covers I'm at, I pull up and usually
I can get ahead of it, calm down.
Or if I'm swimming, I, and I get a cramp and my muscles
which swimmer's doing.
If, if you're experienced swimmer, you can do
I don't even wanna talk about swimming with cramps
but I just do that motion for that, for that.
And it works out
- What do you for a brain cramp?
- I have those, I just live with them, Bob.
(Laughing)
- Thanks for watching.