 In this video I'm gonna share with you eight different tips that I have personally used to stop muscle cramping and I know they will work for you, but before we get into those tips, let's just talk quickly about what actually causes muscle cramps. Number one is muscle fatigue when your muscles get tired. You don't cramp in the first 10 minutes of the game when you're nice and fresh, you cramp in the last 10 when you're getting tired and your muscles are being pushed to their limits. Number two is lack of oxygen to your muscles. Number three is dehydration. And number four is the lack of certain vitamins and minerals that your body needs to act efficiently. If you don't know about me, I used to be a huge underachiever, but through obsessive self-improvement, I found my success. Earned a college scholarship, played for my national foot-salt team, a YouTube channel with over 100 million views. I've helped players worldwide and I'd love to help you improve faster and achieve more. My first piece of advice to reduce muscle cramping is get fit. The fitter you are, the less likely you are to cramp. As I said before, muscle fatigue is the number one reason your muscles are cramping. So if your muscles are used to the exertion, to the intensity that you're putting them through in a game, then yes, they're going to cramp because they've never been there before, they can't handle it. But if you are consistent with your training, you are pushing yourself consistently, but you're also replicating the intensity of a game throughout the week, then your muscles will be more likely to handle the pressures of a match. The second thing I want you to do, and in this case, don't want you to do, is do not pre-fatigue your muscles. And what I mean by that is do not do an intense training session the day before even some people do the morning of their game. So don't do a very intense session in the gym. Don't work your legs really hard the day before your game. They're going to be pre-fatigued. They're already going to be a point at where they're pretty tired, and then in the game, you're going to push them and ask them to do more. They're going to be likely to cramp. Obviously sometimes maybe you're playing in a tournament, you don't have these luxuries. But when you do, learn how to schedule your training. Do your intense leg sessions in the gym earlier in the week. Do your intense training sessions, your sprint training, your fitness training earlier in the week. And then the day before, do a lighter session where you're just stretching out your legs, getting nice touches on the ball, getting mentally prepared for the match. My third tip for reducing muscle cramps, and this one is totally overlooked, is breathing properly. Another reason your muscles may be cramping is because you're not getting enough oxygen to the muscles. So if you've ever been running, I know I used to get this a lot when I was younger, now I don't get it anymore at all. If you've ever been running and you get side cramps, that's because you're not breathing properly. A lot of kids, especially, they're not taught how to breathe properly when running. And they're actually holding their breath or you're going for a sprint, you're tackling for the ball and you're battling, you're not focusing on your breathing. Or after you've done a sprint, it's so important that let's say the ball is out of play or you had a second to breathe instead of putting your hands on your knees and just being like, oh my god, I'm so tired. Actually focus on recovery, focus on getting nice deep breaths of oxygen in through your nose, out through your mouth, and actually focus on your recovery rather than focusing on how tired you are. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can recover. You'll actually help yourself recover so you'll be able to go longer, but you'll be ensuring that you're getting good oxygen flow into your muscles to reduce the chances of cramping. Tip number four for reducing muscle cramps, get a good warm up in. Don't just go out on the field and start sprinting, start kicking balls as hard as you can. You're putting yourself at a real disadvantage. Make sure you get a proper warm up. So do your warm up with your team, but also take a little bit of time to stretch the major muscle groups that you feel personally always cramp when you're playing. Okay, just going that little bit of extra mile will actually help get better oxygen flow into the muscles and it will also loosen them up more so you're not making them really tight and just pounding away at them from the first minutes of the game. If you wanna improve faster and achieve more this season, use the Soccer Success Planner. It's 100% free. Players all around the world have already used it to improve. You can download it right now. There's a link in the description below. Tip four, reducing muscle cramps. Now we're getting into more of what you're actually putting in your body. It's drink more water. Dehydration will result in muscle cramps. So you wanna be drinking lots of water. How much water should you drink? Personally, I like to drink until my pee is clear. So when your urine is clear, you have a good indication that you have enough water in your body. You wanna be drinking water before the match. You wanna be drinking water during the match. You wanna be drinking water after the match to replenish your body. So just make sure that you're drinking lots of water. It will reduce the chance of muscle cramps. You're just eating well on game day and you're expecting your body to operate at its optimum ability. It's not going to happen. So do yourself a favor and try to eat well throughout the week, not just on the day of your game. Your body needs a consistent stream of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Tip number seven is to incorporate some potassium-rich foods into your pregame meal. So you may have heard that potassium is great for reducing cramps and that is true. Now, usually I'll have a banana as part of my pregame. I don't have any bananas because I ate it yesterday before my match. But also things like potatoes are really high in potassium and leafy green vegetables are great sources of potassium. My eighth and final tip for reducing muscle cramps is supplementation. And this is taking it to the next level, but this is something that has really helped me and you might want to think about it as well. So there are other vitamins and minerals that you can take which have been shown to reduce the chances of crappy. So I personally do take an extra potassium supplement. So I just take one tablet before the game. I also take a magnesium supplement before the game and a calcium supplement before the game, okay? And these vitamins have been shown to reduce the chances of crappy. So it's something you might want to experiment with as well. One more thing that I take is I also take a bit of glutamine. And glutamine is something that bodybuilders use to help their muscles recover quicker after workouts so they can work out their muscles more frequently. Now glutamine, it's not a drug. It's not a steroid or anything like that. It's something that is naturally found. It's an amino acid that is found in protein. So the way that protein works is it helps recover your torn muscles. Glutamine is an amino acid. It's one of the ingredients in protein that helps it do just that. So what I do is I just put a little bit of glutamine in my water and I'll drink this throughout the game. As you can see, there are many things you can do to reduce your chances of crappy, but the best thing to do is just combine all of these things together. Now again, this is just my personal advice, but this is what has worked for me and I believe it will work for you as well. If we're moving up divisions to making national teams, players who use the Online Soccer Academy get results. Access elite level coaching and training, become a complete player, make a difference on the field and get noticed when you play. Limited spots available. Apply today. Start improving tomorrow. Link in the description below.