I am a rookie. I got the tri bug last summer. I have raced 3 times and met my goal all three times. However, I have been getting calf cramps, i.e. charlie horses, when either doing bricks with a swim and once on the bike in my last race. I stretch and stay hydrated. I take multivitamins, fish oil and eat as good as a married man with 2 active kids and working straight nights allows. I use Gatorade (just ordered 1st Endurance EFS) and GU on my long workouts and races. The only thing I can come up with is that I am kicking from the knee and recruiting too much calf on the swim. For what its worth, I am male, 35, 5’9, 155 lbs (down from 197 14 months ago). I guess my strong sport is running, then bike and then a very distant last is the swim. I had my Cervelo P2SL FIST fit. I have SIDI T2s and Look KEO Easy pedals. Any thoughts, suggestions?
The only time I got any significant calf cramping was when swimming AFTER another workout. I would spend an hour or two on a bike, then swim, and boom- calf cramp. Or i would run a few miles, hop in the pool, and CRAMP.
If you do your swim workouts first, you’ll probably be fine. if you try and do your swim after a bike or run, you’ll probably continue to cramp. Not sure why it happened, but thats what ended up happening with me every time.
On the plus side- to get the cramps out, I had to point my toes down, which means a ton more drag, and zero help from the kick- so for the couple laps that I had to squeeze the cramp out, I had some good pulling efforts.
I had the same problem just last week. After an hour bike to get to my swim practice, my leg cramped up after 45 minutes of swimming. But I guess that was my quad, now that I think about it…
It is 99% likely (IMO) to be a fitness issue and neither a technique nor a nutrition issue. In other words, with more training, it will (mostly) go away.
You can try kicking a bit easier and not pushing hard off the walls – those things do often trigger the cramping.
If you can feel it about to happen, stop and stretch the calf.
Never thought about or heard of kicking hard off the wall could be the culprit. I do believe every time I have had a calf cramp I have been swimming for time, so, pushing hard off the walls. I ran 14 miles today at a slow pace and all soreness in my calves went away.
for me calf cramps when swimming are always the result of overambitious pacing… that is, a fitness problem.
typically the first few master’s swim team sessions after a layoff will have cramping, sometimes in cold-water races.