Muscle Cramps

Muscle cramps result in continuous, involuntary, painful, and localized contraction of an entire muscle group, individual single muscle, or select muscle fibers. Generally, the cramp can last from minutes to a few seconds for idiopathic or known causes with healthy subjects or in the presence of diseases. Palpating the muscle area of the cramp will present a knot.

Exercise-associated muscle cramps are the most frequent condition requiring medical/therapeutic intervention during sports. The specific etiology is not well understood and possible causes depend on the physiological or pathological situation in which the cramps appear. It is important to note that a painful contraction that is limited to a specific area does not mean that the cause of the cramp is necessarily local.

A cramp is almost never a local effect but involves the whole body system, such as somatic and emotional.