Interview with Dr Adrian Cohen - Medical Director for EcoChallenge, Mild Seven, Survivor

Dr Adrian Cohen will talk about the physical challenges for adventure racers, how the competitors deal with healt issues and when it's time to 'call it a day'.

Calf cramp sidelines Baghdatis in the Australian Open Tennis final

We were watching the tennis final last night in Melbourne - we're sure everyone saw what happened to Marcos Baghdatis in the 3rd set. It just shows that cramps don't discriminate between professionals and everyone else.

The interesting thing was how it was treated. Our friend Dave from Singapore (osteopath & kinesiologist) always advocates squeezing and pumping the muscle to get the blood flowing again (as opposed to stretching). And that's exactly what Baghdatis' physio did - started off by squeezing and massaging the muscle upwards towards the heart, and then followed that up with some vigorous stretching.

Couple of contributing factors that the commentators were discussing - nervous tension, fluid loss and fatigue.

Introduction

Hi there. Paul Newland and Katie Holmes here - a new blog for sufferers of running cramps and for anyone wanting to improve their sporting health. Look for regular posts and articles on sports nutrition, running cramps, ways of preventing muscle cramps - sign up for new feeds from our blog using one of the 'feeds' on the bottom right of the screen.

We'll include tips from a wide range of health & sports medicine professionals. We'll share our experiences with you and we're really interested in tips and information from you guys from your experiences.

Best
Paul & Katie