Hey everyone, I just want to gather people's experiences here on muscle cramps and spasms that seem to occur only during cycle (they begin a few weeks into the cycle) and after terminating the cycle, the cramps/spasms seem to go away. I have been able to seldom find information on this, as it seems like it's something erratic or something that nobody has deemed to be serious enough to warrant making a post on it or anything.
I've been plagued with this ever since my first cycle 5 years ago. Never before did I get this, and it seems to only occur on-cycle. Here are MY best descriptions of characteristics that describe it so you have an idea of what i'm talking about:
- Muscle cramps/spasms (I am not sure what specific word to use here) tend to begin about 4 or 5 weeks into the cycle, sometimes later on. The occurance of these spasms seem to coincide linearly with muscle growth and strength gains on-cycle. Meaning, the spasms and cramps become more frequent in relation to growth and strength gains as they increase as well.
- The spasms do not occur randomly. They occur in response to certain movements. This is best described as: think of a given muscle in a contracted position for an extended period of time (think holding a phone up to your ear and talking on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes, your arm is in this position during this whole time). Your biceps, brachialis, and brachioradialis in this position are all in contracted or semi-contracted positions during this time you are on the phone. Your phone call ends, you go to hang up the phone by which you extend your arm to put the phone back and bang, you get a muscle spasm/cramp that feels like your arm is trying to force itself back into the contracted position. This ONLY occurs if you extend your arm very quickly. This ONLY occurs AFTER your muscle has been in a contracted position for a period of time. Extending said muscle slowly instead of quickly (lets say to put the phone down) does not ellicit a muscle spasm. This happens with any muscle that seems to undergo this movement pattern. E.g. extending limbs very quickly when waking up and getting out of bed in the morning, reaching out to grab something quickly, reaching out to turn down the dial on my speaker volume on the computer, sitting down very quickly after standing for a while causing my hamstrings to spasm in the same manner, etc. common movements like that.
- This muscle cramping/spasming is not of the same type as the cramps that come from clenbuterol (taurine depletion). Characteristics of these cramps are that the muscle cramps up badly when contracted very intensely. That is not what is happening here.
- After stopping AAS cycle, the spasming of this nature seems to go away after a few weeks.
I've been wondering if anyone else has ever had this? I have tried supplementing with Taurine, Magnesium, and Potassium. Taurine seemed to be unable to help. Magnesium had no noticeable effect. But, potassium seemed to help somewhat in reducing the frequency and intensity of the spasms. But nevertheless, the spasms still remained and these things become quite the annoyance. I'm convinced that AAS use seems to deplete potassium levels in skeletal muscle (perhaps in only some of us). Towards the end of my most recent cycle, I supplemented with all 3 and it seemed to work better than supplementing with potassium on its own. Note that water intake for me is always very high, so this could not have been a dehydration issue.
At one point during a bicep workout on my most recent cycle, I had been doing single-arm concentration curls. When I brought my right arm to failure, and switched to the left, I extended my right to relax it and it cramped up so bad that my whole arm locked up. This happened on a couple separate bicep workouts, and seemed to subside a bit when I started supplementing with potassium (200mg a day), but it was still there.
If anyone has had a smiliar experience, please post here. Please post your symptoms, and how you've dealt with them. Or any further information you might have. I'm curious about this little muscle spasm anomaly that seems to be brought about by AAS cycling. As I mentioned, it does NOT happen when off-cycle.
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Originally Posted by Capebuffalo
