Muscle spasms & leg shaking days after heavy workouts?

[Asayake]

So I've been upping my workout intensity and consistency, and I'm making progress. However, as often seems to happen in life, I've encountered an unexpected obstacle. 

When I'm resting, sitting down, but especially when I'm lying down to sleep at night I can feel my muscles having tiny spasms/twitching. In my thighs, calves, lats, back,  and sometimes in my abs and even my feet too. Which area is spasming/twitching varies from day to day, yesterday and today it's been mostly in the thighs and calves when sitting & lying down, sometimes when sitting down my thighs are shaking slightly and sometimes occasional muscle twitches in my calves too. The twitching seems to come on in the evening on deadlift or squat day or the day after and lasts a few days before subsiding. It comes back again everytime I hit deadlift or squats which is pretty annoying because I deadlift 1 time/week and squat 2 times/week. It makes sleeping very annoying. I'm loving my workouts, I'm pretty careful with technique and I'm not progressively overloading too fast. I'm never 1 rep maxing, I'm in a 4-8 rep range on squats and a 4-6 rep range on deadlifts per set, 3-4 sets of each.

Things I've tried so far: drinking more water, supplementing 1 mg b12(methylcobalamine) daily, eating more potassium(bananas, kiwis, potatoes, hitting 100-200% DRI daily), eating more salt(pink himalayan), apple cider vinegar before sleep, doing yoga for stress relief. Each solution seems to help somewhat, but they only make the twitching/spasming less frequent and intense, it doesn't go away completely until a few days of rest have passed. This sucks a bit because I want to go back to the gym, it makes me feel good and I want to keep making progress. But having twitching/spasms every night is impacting my ability to fall asleep so I'm falling asleep late and fking up my sleep schedule.

 

Has anyone encountered something similar when working out? Did you find any way to fix this or do you just have to live with this until it eventually goes away..?

Edited October 15, 2022 by Asayake

[Jannes]

For how long have you been working out? If you just start your whole body will be wrecked like crazy after a bit of work. Haha I miss that feeling. You might overtrain. You could reduce the load which would reduce fatigue and stimulus (still enough if you are a beginner) and you could still improve your technique. 

[Asayake]

29 minutes ago, Jannes said:

For how long have you been working out? If you just start your whole body will be wrecked like crazy after a bit of work. Haha I miss that feeling. You might overtrain. You could reduce the load which would reduce fatigue and stimulus (still enough if you are a beginner) and you could still improve your technique. 

I've been working out since february but it was mostly getting technique down, I was not pushing it or making a lot of progress. It's just recently that I'm feeling confident in e.g. the deadlift and adding on some weight. I also came back recently from a 2 month break because first I injured my hand and then I suffered chest pains that were from heartburn but it freaked me out so I didnt excercise for a while. So I lost some significant gains.

Maybe it's the fact that my body is not used to it and I'm pushing it too hard. I will reduce my workload and see if things improve. Atm I'm doing a push pull legs split and working out 5-6 times per week + 2 days running and yoga in the mornings. Maybe I'm just overdoing it lmao.. Maybe I should swap to full body and do it 2 times per week or something til my body adapts.

A weird things though is I'm not getting much DOMS/soreness. It's just the spasming & twitching. And occasional fatigue.. weird.

[Jannes]

15 minutes ago, Asayake said:

I've been working out since february but it was mostly getting technique down, I was not pushing it or making a lot of progress. It's just recently that I'm feeling confident in e.g. the deadlift and adding on some weight. I also came back recently from a 2 month break because first I injured my hand and then I suffered chest pains that were from heartburn but it freaked me out so I didnt excercise for a while. So I lost some significant gains.

Maybe it's the fact that my body is not used to it and I'm pushing it too hard. I will reduce my workload and see if things improve. Atm I'm doing a push pull legs split and working out 5-6 times per week + 2 days running and yoga in the mornings. Maybe I'm just overdoing it lmao.. Maybe I should swap to full body and do it 2 times per week or something til my body adapts. 

A weird things though is I'm not getting much DOMS/soreness. It's just the spasming & twitching. And occasional fatigue.. weird.

Yeah you do too much. As a beginner you will get optimal results if you do just enough. If you do much more effort you won’t get more gains, you will actually get less. The first two years of me working out (I was 15) I did like 30 sets of chest and back per week always beyond fatigue and a bit of biceps and triceps. I made some gains but really nothing significant. Then I asked a personal trainer for advice. He put me on 3 times per week full body training where I always rotated between training A and training B. Day A: 3x squats, 3x bench press, 3x rows and Day B: 3x deadlift, 3x Overhead press, 3x, 3x pull ups. And he said that I should up my calories and protein. Idk how much of an effect increased calories but I blew up in size in a few months. It was way more significant then what I archieved in the last two years of working my ass off. 

Can highly recommended this YouTube channel if you look for quality information around training and diet. 
 

 

[Asayake]

38 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Yeah you do too much. As a beginner you will get optimal results if you do just enough. If you do much more effort you won’t get more gains, you will actually get less. The first two years of me working out (I was 15) I did like 30 sets of chest and back per week always beyond fatigue and a bit of biceps and triceps. I made some gains but really nothing significant. Then I asked a personal trainer for advice. He put me on 3 times per week full body training where I always rotated between training A and training B. Day A: 3x squats, 3x bench press, 3x rows and Day B: 3x deadlift, 3x Overhead press, 3x, 3x pull ups. And he said that I should up my calories and protein. Idk how much of an effect increased calories but I blew up in size in a few months. It was way more significant then what I archieved in the last two years of working my ass off. 

Can highly recommended this YouTube channel if you look for quality information around training and diet. 
 

 

Thanks, I will try a 3X/week whole body compound movement only style program like the one you posted and see if things improves! I'm going to check the channel out as well, looks like useful information.

[OBEler]

@Asayake you need more Magnesium, I think

[StormLight]

I think it's normal, i can get quite jittery after a workout, even after briefly lifting some heavy bags

[Michael569]

you might be overloading your body with more than it can handle. I've had that sort of shakiness before especially when going very heavy on legs. 

Electrolytes as suggested above might help. Potassium isn't particularly rich in any of the foods you mentioned. You could try a short-term electrolyte dosing and see if it helps. 

[Asayake]

9 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Asayake you need more Magnesium, I think

I'm getting 100% RDI of magnesium bur I will try supplementing it. Any idea of which form to take? I see there are many different kinds.

9 hours ago, StormLight said:

I think it's normal, i can get quite jittery after a workout, even after briefly lifting some heavy bags

Does it happen to you everytime/did it go away at some point?

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

you might be overloading your body with more than it can handle. I've had that sort of shakiness before especially when going very heavy on legs. 

Electrolytes as suggested above might help. Potassium isn't particularly rich in any of the foods you mentioned. You could try a short-term electrolyte dosing and see if it helps. 

I just googled high potassium foods and picked a few of the ones that popped up and tried eating more of them. 

As far as electrolyte dosing, do you have any recommendations of good ones? Should I take potassium/magnesium separately or is there some good electrolyte blend/drink/pill that has it all?

[Michael569]

8 hours ago, Asayake said:

As far as electrolyte dosing, do you have any recommendations of good ones? Should I take potassium/magnesium separately or is there some good electrolyte blend/drink/pill that has it all?

you should be able to find electrolyte powders. Something with as few excipients as possible and no need to go fancy. I would go for powder preferably to capsules. Start light so that you don't give yourself diarrhoea. 

[Asayake]

19 hours ago, Michael569 said:

you should be able to find electrolyte powders. Something with as few excipients as possible and no need to go fancy. I would go for powder preferably to capsules. Start light so that you don't give yourself diarrhoea. 

I began taking an electrolyte powder with potassium/magnesium/calcium/sodium today. Hopefully it helps! I'll be back in the thread later with an update 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Asayake

[The0Self]

This simply means you hit the very high threshold muscle fibers that only fire upon maximal effort. It actually isn’t necessary to push that hard, but it can and should be done from time to time, and eventually when very trained, your body won’t react that way nearly as easily.

[petar8p]

It's normal. Try cold plunges and squeeze lemon after training. Don't be afraid to train over them if you've had enough rest.

[Asayake]

Status update: My problem is still remaining. It is not as intense as before, but it's still remaining and impacting my sleep. No spasms unless resting, either sitting down or especially lying down. I mostly feel good during the day, no spasms, unless lying down for rest and also some while sitting at my computer. But especially at night when I'm tired, the spasms increase in frequency and intensity, although it is better now than it was before. Also my heartburn has made a return and it has been working as a tag team with the muscle spasms to disrupt my sleep. It is hard to sleep if I don't workout, do yoga, eat healthy and avoid screen time for 2-3 hours before sleep. If i don't do all of these steps I only seem to get 3-4 hours of sleep now almost guaranteed. Eventhough I do all of the things I mentioned, yoga, working out, cardio, eating healthy, avoiding screen time and going to bed at 9-10 pm I  still often only sleep til 1-2 am then I wake up, usually with heart burn symptoms. Then my muscle spasms make it harder for me to fall back asleep again.

These are the hings I've tried so far and how they've worked:

Electrolyte power: I tried an electrolyte powder containing Sodium Citrare, Potassium Citrate, Magnesium Citrate, Calcium Lactate, Sodium Chloride, Stevia sweetener. It seemed to make the problem worse. Shortly after taking the powder the spasming would begin, so I've stopped taking it for now.

Magnesium Taurate: I tried taking magnesium taurate one day. It's hard yet for me to tell wether it was beneficial or not because I've only tried it once so far. However, my reaction to it was so intense that I'm not sure if I want to take it again for a while, maybe I'll try another form of magnesium/other brand. I took it at night before sleep. 1-2 hours after intake I started feeling mentally stimulated. I was feeling nausea/confusion as well. Anxiety was increasing, I had to run to the bathroom a couple of times, had what felt like anxiety induced shits. I didn't have diarrhea but I had to go badly a couple of times and I felt very anxious, fight or flight mode kicked in.

A pretty bad anxiety remained for a few hours, I felt mentally stimulated and couldn't sleep. I had to focus on my breath and surrender to it all in fetus position in my bed, I finally managed to let go and be the observer of the situation and my anxiety melted away and I had a couple of blissful hours of relief before falling asleep. Then the following day my nose was very clogged up, I had a lot of mucus and couldn't breathe through my nose. I felt as if I had the flu or something, I was mentally exhausted. I had some randoms body aches just like when having the flu. That lasted for 2 days, but I was feeling increasingly better, both mentally I was feeling very splendid, but also the muscle spasms got better, less frequent and intense. But I can't tell if the spasms were getting better because I was not doing any excercise or because of the magnesium taurate dose.

Changing up my workouts: I have decreased my workout frequency as well as intensity. I am now doing full body with just a couple of compound movements. Then some relaxing yoga in the evenings and light jogging 2 times per week. This seems to help somewhat but it feels like it will take a long time for me to make any progress training wise like this. I tried pushing myself with some progressive overload on one of my whole body workouts and in the evening the spasming was getting worse again. But the workouts feel good and are less taxing mentally than my old style of working out.

Diet: I have been trying to include more magnesium rich and healthy foods to see if that can help without giving me the extreme side effects the magnesium taurate supplement did. What I've been eating lately is as follows, I've cut out all that I consider junk. I now eat what I think might be pretty clean, in no particular order:

Quinoa, Spinach, Turkey Breast, Salmon, Kale, Pumpkin Seeds, Walnuts, Bananas, Potatoes, Red lentils, Kiwi fruits, Whole wheat pasta, Sushi, Olive oil, Apples, Sardines, Bell peppers, Cucumber, Romaine Lettuce, Cod Liver Oil.

This is all I've been eating the past week. I also drank a glass of milk once and ate some yoghurt once. I have been feeling good during the day for the most part, I think my diet improvments have made a positive impact on the spasming so it could be that the increased magnesium intake from food is helping. I have a lot of energy and am motivated to excercise and do yoga. My mind is mostly peaceful, I love running and feeling my breath. But at night when I'm lying down to rest the spasms are still there. Even though they have improved somewhat. And at night my acid reflux acts up too, it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Apple Cider Vinegar: To deal with my acid reflux I've reincorporated 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar per day. Before I used to have sleep trouble from drinking it because it used to make me feel stimulated in the night, but it did solve my acid reflux completely during the time I was taking it at night. But now I'm drinking it in the morning & at lunch instead. I have no trouble falling asleep because of being stimulated from ACV now it seems. But so far it's not helping my acid reflux at night much either. However, it does make my digestion feel great whenever I use it. When I first take it in the morning I get some slight weird feeling and anxiety, I start feeling stimulated, like I drank a cup of coffee or something. Then that feeling becomes more subtle, the anxiety dissappears and my digestion kickstarts and seems like it's working better than normal in the early part of the day when I'm using it. When I'm not using ACV I have some indigestion/burping throughout the day, especially if I eat a big meal. I'm guessing it's tied to the acid reflux.

 

I can't seem to wrap my hands around my health, it feels like everytime I try putting out one fire another one appears. Really frustrating, I'm writing this after waking up at 2 am from acid reflux and then having some muscle spasms. My plan right now moving forward is to try a couple more days of Apple Cider Vinegar in the early part of the day and to potentially look for another form and brand of magnesium to see if I can take it without getting so adverse side effects. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Asayake