For the past month I’ve been experiencing muscle cramps at night. Always in my calf muscles. And to the point where some nights I wake up several times. Usually having to get out of bed to stretch and try to relax my calf muscle so that I can go back to bed.

Because of this I decided to research this area of muscle cramps at night and found that I’m not alone.

Most people experience an occasional muscle cramp. But as we age they become more common. It’s estimated that for people over the age of 60 (I’m 64) one out of three people experience muscle cramps at night. And if your over the age of 80 then the number of people experiencing muscle cramps at night increases to 50 percent.

Now my background and education is exercise physiology. So I assumed that the cause of my muscle cramps at night was a lack of potassium in my diet. But as I researched this issue I found that it’s more than just a lack of potassium. Read More →