GPP Week 2 - Severe Quad Cramps!

Injury Clinic
1

I’ve just started the second week of the GPP template - 40m hills.

  • We have moved to a hill closer to home - similiar if not identical gradient, same surface, etc.

  • Both quads cramped severely within the first few strides of the first 40m rep.

  • We warmed up as per usual - 10 min jog, thorough stretching, etc.

  • My training partner suffered from exactly the same problem - cramps in the same area of the quad, left leg worse than right.

I have absolutely no idea what could have caused this?!

What is going on? :eek:

2

Did you drink or eat before hand? I’ve done hills 3 times a week with 30 athletes and no cramp.

3

YOu live in Qld right?? ITs darn hot at times… Drink heaps, and get some electrolytes in

4

Had a big meal couple of hours before hand.

Weather was warm, but nothing out of the ordinary. Last week was hotter.

The thing that struck me was that it happened to both of us - identical symptoms.

My only thought is… neither of us have done any kind of exercise for 6 months, and nothing that would pass as regular for roughly a year.

The DOMS after the first hill session was HORRENDOUS. We ran Mon + Wed with some tempo in between, then took 4 days off before today.

Maybe the hill was steeper/less steep than we thought, and maybe the super compensation from the previous week allowed us to put ourselves into a position that we didn’t have the eccentric quad strength to support - inducing cramp?

Am I dreaming? :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Can you detail your warm-up more? I have done some GPP hill workouts and quite a few other forum members have as well without any problem at all, so it seems odd that both of you got such severe cramps.

6

Well for one thing, you’ve got to be FAR more progressive after such a long layoff.
This is what’s scary about putting sample workouts up. They are exactly that - SAMPLES- to be individualized to your own circumstances.
One size does not fit all!!

7

Indeed I have found progression to be key. It is surprising how slowly the curve needs to be progressed to prevent DOMs and other conditioning risks. My tempo sessions start out at 800m and progresses in 200m increments upto 2000m over six weeks (200m additional per week or 100m per session). This may sound very conservative but once you are at the 2000m mark you can hold this almost all year round with no doms and no interference with speed etc. It is only 6 weeks out of 40 or so and during that time you can spend the “saved” energy on other things like technique progression and learning new skillls.

8

Yea seriously. I can only imagine how many people cut and paste your example program for any level of athlete.

9

Just answered your own question right there! Take it easy, you haven’t done much in so long and jumping back into this type of program with the exact volumes listed is asking for trouble! Take care of those quads!

10

When i did the Gpp, i didnt just jump right into it.
the 10-20-30m efforts, for eg i did

mon 10x10m and 5 x 20m
wed 10x 10m 10x20m
fri 10x10m 10x20m 10x30m

I did this type of progression mostly for the 1st 4weeks as i too had come off a long lay off from running.
it took approx 4weeks before i actually noticed i could run again!!

11

I had the same problems in my groin/flexors when I tried to start GPP like 4-6 weeks ago. I basically hadn’t done ANYTHING cept some weights for 3-4 months because I strained my hamstring in early summer and was an idiot.

Just warm up good, start stretching ur hip flexors/quads regularly if they are not strained right now, and gradually work up.

12

stick with the workouts unless the problem dont go away.

13

If you stay with the same sessions, you MUST do them in a relaxed manner and only do what you are able to handle. If you are always forcing things, you’ll continue to have problems.

14

This is exactly why we only did 2 hill sessions in the first week. The runs out to 30m felt fine, hence trying the hills out to 40m.

But is this really relevent if we are talking about cramping within the first couple of strides of the first rep?

Davan, we jog for about 10 minutes, then do upper and lower stretching, few drills, and a few progressive run throughs.

15

First Rep but NOT the first session. The more overloaded you are the tighter you get, and the tighter you get, the harder it is to warm up successfully.

16

the only reason why i said that is bc many people are very sore when starting the gpp workouts after long lay offs and maybe he should give them another week or two before making major changes, but i totally agree he should work on relaxing.