Since the last time I posted on leg cramps back in April I am still leg cramp free. In addition the occasional night cramp that I would get in my calf muscle has not reared it's ugly self. At least five days a week I do some resistance training for my calf and hamstring muscles. This is in addition to a simple and basic upper body workout I do at home at least twice a week.. I don't want to have a marshmallow upper body sitting on a set of hardened recumbent legs.
Right now my resistance training for my legs is done at home using elastic bands. It's not so much building muscle as it's forcing my leg muscles to do full and hard contractions. As I mentioned previously it seemed that my leg muscles had developed a memory from many miles of cycling. The the repetitive motion of turning the crank does not involve a full contraction of the various leg muscles used for cycling. It got to the point where I could be standing around the house and if I tried to do a full contraction of my calf or hamstring it would start to cramp. I don't have any science to explain this phenomenon it's just the way it was. I started using the elastic bands and carefully forced my calf and hamstrings into a full contraction. I couldn't contract all the way at first without starting to cramp. It took about a week to get to the point where I could do a full and hard contraction. After about a month I was able to hold a full contraction with a problem.
When I was younger I spent many a day in the gym (at one time I even owned a couple of Gold's Gyms). I haven't exactly been chomping on the bit to go back to the gym again but now that Byron is using the gym for off season training for track maybe I'll join him. I could really get a good leg workout on the right equipment. I'll be giving it some more thought.
