Nothing has the ability to freak you out, take your breath away, or completely annoy you quite like a muscle cramp, spasm, or twitch.
Honestly, just the thought of one is enough to make your eye, well, twitch.
Muscle twitches are involuntary contractions of an entire muscle or just a few of its fibers, often caused by issues in either the actual muscle or the nerves that tell it “go, go, go!” explains sports medicine physician J. Christopher Mendler, M.D., medical director of Holy Name Medical Center’s Sports Medicine Program.
While your twitchiness might feel pretty random, it’s probably not. Certain factors can make you more prone to a case of the twitches—and luckily, most of them are pretty fixable. Here’s what your muscle twitches are trying to tell you:
1. You Don’t Get Enough D
Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking about vitamin D! The sunshine vitamin is critical to healthy muscles, and low levels (which are ridiculously common) can lead to hypocalcemia, a condition in which there is too little calcium in the blood, says Jackie Dikos, R.D., C.S.S.D., a board-certified sports therapist at Nutrition Success. The result: The nerves that are in charge of telling your muscles what to do spaz out, she says.
If you haven’t had your vitamin D tested within the last year, it’s time to talk to your doc about running the numbers, especially if you live in a northern climate that doesn’t get as much direct sunlight as places that are closer to the equator, Dikos says. She notes that while D-fortified foods like milk and orange juice can help get your levels up, your doctor might also recommend supplementation.
2. You’re Stressed To The Max
Stress just loves to screw with your body, and can actually deplete your body’s magnesium stores to trigger twitches, says Dikos, explaining that magnesium plays a huge role in nerve function.
If you’re super-stressed, mentally or physically (have you kicked your workout routine into overdrive lately?), she recommends increasing your intake of magnesium-rich foods such as leafy greens, avocados, nuts, and legumes. (Dark chocolate is also packed with magnesium. Just sayin’.)
3. You’re Not A Fan Of Bananas
Every consider why virtually every race passes out bananas to its runners? Because potassium is an electrolyte that’s critical to keeping muscles firing exactly how they should. “Lack of potassium constricts blood vessels, leading to a decrease in blood flow and the breakdown of muscle tissue,” says Dikos. “This can cause an irritation and hyperexcitability of motor neurons.” Little twitches to full-blown cramps (think: Charlie horses) can result.
Sure, bananas are a great source of potassium. But so are sweet potatoes, avocados, and spinach, says Dikos. Make sure to get your fill, especially if you’re exercising, which depletes your potassium levels.
4. You Regularly Forget Your Water Bottle At Home
Perhaps the simplest way to combat muscle cramps is to drink more water: “I’ve seen athletes not drink enough water during the day, go into a practice, sweat a lot, then end up having muscle cramps,” says Dikos. Even mild dehydration can decrease blood flow to your muscles and trigger cramping.
To say ahead of the game, pay attention to the color of your urine (drink enough to keep it light or nearly clear) and weigh yourself both before and after intense workouts. Your goal: Lose no more than 2 percent of your body weight in water during any workout. So, if you weigh 150 pounds, losses of more than three pounds means you didn’t drink enough during your workout, she says.
5. You’ve Got A Food Sensitivity
“I worked with a client whose leg would twitch all the time when she had soy,” says Dikos. “However, when she removed soy from her diet, she found that she didn’t suffer from muscle twitching.” No, soy isn’t bad, but everyone responds differently to different foods. And any food can trigger an immune response, and that can include (who knew?) muscle spasms.
Before you jump head first into an elimination diet, talk to an doctor or R.D. about the Mediator Release Test, which analyzes how you body reacts to 170 different foods and chemicals such as wheat, cow milk, corn, cane sugar, and soy as well as chemicals such as phenylalanine, solanine, and salicylic acid.
6. You’re Pushing Too Hard In The Gym
“Mild to moderate degrees of muscle breakdown is part of the standard training cycle, and is necessary for adaptation,” Mendler says. “However, severe muscle breakdown can result in more significant damage to the muscle cells that cause cramps and spasms,” Mendler says.
If you experience back spasms after a heavy lift or calf cramps following a PR run, it’s likely that your workout was either too long, too intense, or poor form got the best of you. Curb the cramping with massage, compression, and alternating ice and cold packs, he says. It’s also worth repleting your fluid, D, potassium, and magnesium levels, all of which can can run low following an intense workout, Dikos says.
