Stretching
Cramps are involuntary muscular contractions. If your legs cramp while you are engaged in an activity, it is advisable to pause that activity and try to relax the contracted muscle. You can do this by gently stretching the muscle when you move the affected leg. Hold your stretch and go through the motion slowly until you start to feel relief.
Your legs may cramp while you are asleep or resting. This usually happens in the calf muscles behind the legs. You can relieve this by making slow, gentle calf stretches using your heel. The heel is connected to the calf muscles so stretching it can help lessen the contraction in your calf.
Leg cramps in your calf may be relieved by hamstring muscle stretch, calf muscle stretch, or quadriceps muscle stretch. These stretches are really easy to do. To perform the calf muscle stretch, follow these steps [2]:
- Stand about a meter away from a wall with both feet pressed flat against the ground.
- Stretch your arms out toward the wall with your hands flat and gently lean toward it.
- Make sure your heels are on the ground while you lean forward. This ensures your calf muscles are stretched.
- Hold this for about 10 seconds before returning to your starting position.
- Repeat this stretch five or more times.