# athletics, fluid intake and cramping

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 24, 2000, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595 "2000-07-24T02:03:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595/1 "2000-07-24T02:03:01Z")

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During the athletic glory days of our youth, we were always taught to take in enough water or Gatorade to combat dehydration, but not to overdo it, for fear of cramping up.

It seems as though professional athletes follow the same advice.

Is this true? How does more fluid help bring about cramping?

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**Author:** ![tcburnett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@tcburnett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tcburnett)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595/2 "2000-07-24T02:16:44Z")

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One of the SCUBA instructors around here doesn’t use a watch, dive table or computer. He insists that a the safe ‘surface interval’ for any dive is four beers. He has never cramped up on the second or third dive of the day, so I’m not sure your premise is true.

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**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595/3 "2000-07-24T05:08:57Z")

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If we drank too much water back in high school football, we would just puke it on each other. It was considered preferable to puke on each other on purpose, rather than doing it on accident.

I always assumed that “cramping” was a euphenism for “puking”.

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**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athletics-fluid-intake-and-cramping/26595/4 "2000-07-24T05:24:38Z")

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Muscle cramps as a result of exercise are the result of too much electrolyte lost through sweat. It has nothing to do with puking.