If you have run for any distance then you have most likely experienced a cramp in you abdomen while running. It most often starts after a few minutes and can often last for the entire run. This can be miserable enough that some people avoid running all together just to avoid this type of pain.
While there is limited running in CrossFit in general at CrossFit Carmel we tend to try and add it to our WODs every few days so our athletes develop endurance in that area. Although our runs tend to last less than 800 meters and are more likely to be in the 200 to 400 meter range and they are likely at the beginning and end of the WODs, although we do sometimes work them into the wods as part of a round. We do this for multiple reasons. First it helps our athletes get their breathing rhythm going and loosens up their muscles for the work ahead and is a good opportunity to develop camaraderie. Some athletes can develop cramps even at these short distances but not often.
I usually write cramps off as a runners problem and haven’t thought much about it till one of our athletes mentioned in a conversation that they get cramps when doing box jumps. I thought is was odd and asked how often they get cramps on box jumps and the answer was “every time”. I was surprised and thought I would take a quick look through any text I could find on cramps to possibly glean some information on why this was happening. I ran across a lot of possible reasons and some of them were just stupid and some explanations made sense. Such as dehydration and lack of potassium among a few of them. But this did not apply to box jumps and this athlete did not eat before working out and eats a balanced diet so neither of those were the likely culprit.
I did find an article however on www.livestrong.com that talked about spasms due to the bouncing of your internal organs and I have included a quote from it below.
Exertion
When running, the internal organs move up and down inside the body cavity. The organs are attached with connective tissue. When bouncing around, the connective tissue is stretched, which can lead to pain. The bouncing can also lead to increased pressure on the diaphragm. The diaphragm, which is responsible for breathing, is already under stress while you are running. Additional pressure can lead to spasms in the diaphragm, which bring on the familiar pain of a stomach cramp.
We usually take our athletes through the CrossFit Warmup and while there is some stretching for the abdominal area from the Sampson Stretch sometimes that is not enough for all athletes. For these particular athletes we will be adding the upward dog and side bend stretches along with some training on proper breathing exercises to stretch out their abdominal walls.
As with everything in CrossFit we will track the progress in journals to see what is most effective and hopefully have some solid information on how to alleviate this type of cramping for future athletes.
