The Unusual Drink Experts Say to Sip the Next Time You Have a Muscle Cramp
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Muscle cramps are a total pain. And next time you feel one cropping up after a long run or heavyweight session, you might want to forgo an over-the-counter pain reliever for a swig of pickle juice instead. That’s right: That same liquid those cukes are swimming in may actually stop a muscle cramp in its tracks.
Pickle juice to aid in muscle recovery after exercise is all over social media these days, but the craze can be traced back to the early 2000s when endurance athletes started downing sips of the sour liquid, says Kat Barefield, MS, RDN, a nutrition master instructor at National Association of Sports Medicine. But pickle juice really exploded on one particular day — September 3, 2000, to be exact — in an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. The air temp that day was 109 degrees, but the field registered at an even more scorching 130 degrees. To prevent dehydration and cramping in the extreme heat, the Eagles trainers had their players drink pickle juice. The Eagles beat the Cowboys that day, and the game has since been dubbed the “Pickle Juice Game.” And several clinical trials have examined the phenomenon and confirmed what the Eagles trainers already knew: Pickle juice may indeed help calm cramps.
We asked experts to explain how it works.
What causes muscle cramps?
Muscles alternately contract and relax as we use them. When you flex your biceps, that’s a contraction. When you stop flexing, the muscle relaxes. A cramp occurs when a muscle stays contracted for an extended period of time, and while exercise-induced cramps can crop up for a few other different reasons, too, the causes are often intertwined.
Overexertion is one culprit. “When muscles are tired, certain neurons become more active, causing muscles to stay contracted, which leads to cramps,” Barefield says.
Another is dehydration. When we lose fluid through sweat, we’re also losing electrolytes. Electrolytes are minerals that carry an electric charge and pull water into cells to maintain hydration throughout the body, and they also help nerve signals to transmit and muscles to contract properly. So it makes sense that replenishing your electrolyte supply can help cramps go away. Sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and chloride all function as electrolytes.
How does pickle juice stop cramps?
Pickle juice is an acidic brine usually made of water, vinegar, salt and sugar, and sometimes herbs and spices such as dill and mustard seeds. The liquid contains a couple of electrolytes: a lot of sodium and a little potassium.
Although it varies from person to person, the average adult can lose about 300 to 500 milligrams of sodium through their sweat during exercise, says Amy Goldsmith, RDN, a registered dietitian and owner of Kindred Nutrition & Wellness in Frederick, Maryland. Eight ounces of pickle juice or a packaged pickle juice drink has 821 milligrams of sodium, so “I think that people probably feel replenished quicker because it has a very high dose of sodium,” Goldsmith says.
But the electrolytes are only one part of the pickle-juice puzzle. Some studies show people feeling cramp relief before electrolytes would have had time to be properly absorbed, so experts think another aspect of pickle juice must be pushing pause on muscle cramps: vinegar. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which gives it its pungent smell and sour taste and helps to preserve cucumbers as pickles. When we drink pickle juice, the shock of that acetic acid in the mouth triggers the oropharyngeal reflex — a.k.a. the gag reflex — which causes the muscles in the throat to constrict and muscles elsewhere in the body to relax.
“It basically disrupts that signal that’s being sent by the central nervous system to the muscles and tells the body, 'All right, stop cramping,’" says Madison Shaw, RDN, a registered dietitian and personal trainer at Life Time Miami at the Falls in Miami, Florida.
The effects, however, typically aren’t long-lasting — about 10 to 15 minutes. But that might be plenty of time to stretch, rehydrate or massage the sore spot for longer relief.
Is pickle juice safe to drink?
For most people, yes, but experts recommend sticking to small quantities since most of the research on pickle juice found it to be effective in small amounts (typically, 1.5 to 3 ounces, roughly the size of one to two shots).
Pickle juice's high sodium content may help with cramp relief, but it can be a concern for people with high blood pressure or other health conditions that require them to monitor their sodium intake. Plus, some research found people who drank large quantities of the acidic liquid (defined as about 18.5 ounces) had gastrointestinal upset.
Pickle juice also isn’t meant for total rehydration — it's still crucial to guzzle plenty of regular H20 for that. It's more so a hack for in-the-moment cramp relief. “If you need some short-term pain relief, you might get it, but it’s not going to replace all the fluid you lost from a long bout of exercise, exercising in the heat, the sauna or hot yoga,” Barefield says.
Other ways to relieve or prevent muscle cramps
All of the experts agree: Staying hydrated throughout the day and your workout matters most. “The most controllable thing is definitely hydration,” says Matt Dustin, CSCS, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach in Las Vegas. “Make sure you’re drinking enough if you tend to sweat a lot.”
If you are a big sweater, consider a hydrating drink that includes multiple electrolytes. “I would prefer a product that has the potassium, the sodium, the calcium, and the magnesium if somebody's really dealing with dehydration and muscle cramps,” Goldsmith says. Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is also a good way to stay hydrated, as they naturally contain electrolytes and water.
And if you're new to an exercise routine and experiencing cramps, you may just need to dial it back and instead ease into physical activity. “If you’re going for a long run and start to get a cramp, it’s probably just the muscle isn’t conditioned enough,” Dustin says. “At that point, you really just have to slow down a bit and wait for it to go away. Over time, it should improve.”
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