You don’t have to be a marathoner to be painfully familiar with the pangs of muscle cramps. The young, old, active, and sedentary alike are all susceptible to cramps—and they can come when you least expect it—creeping up on you during a sun salutation or disrupting a good night’s sleep.
“Muscle cramping is basically an over-activation or contraction of a muscle,” says Houman Danesh, M.D. and director of Mount Sinai’s Integrative Pain Management. “And although it can happen anywhere, it usually occurs in the calf since that muscle uses the most energy in the body.”
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But while it’s easy to know when you’re having a muscle cramp, it can be harder to figure out why you’re experiencing one. We talked to Danesh about the surprising reasons why you might be cramping.