Are post work out shakes and twistched normal?

August 8, 2005 10:22 PM

After a semi hard run or other cardio / muscular endurance excerise I sometimes get the shakes, or muscle twitchs... and not in the muscles you would expect. What would cause this?

I rowed alot in HS and College (did pretty well with it actually) and often after a REALLY hard erg work out the tip of my nose would tingle... which I could never figure out why. Also after my run tonight (2.6 miles in about 24 minutes) my hands shook (ever so slightly) while holding my drinking cup.. and i got an odd muscle twitch in my lip..

could this be a sign of something physically wrong (i've always been pretty active) or just .. my quirky anotomy?

posted by crewshell to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Response by poster: Wanted to clarify, that the slight shake (very slight) that occured after tonights run was not abnormal it happens often though not constantly.
posted by crewshell at 10:27 PM on August 8, 2005

Could simply be loss of blood sugar. I get shakey after massive cardio stints, but only generally if I'm at it for an hour and a half or longer and on high resistance. Tingling in the extremities is also familiar (particularly, ahem, after strenuous, lengthy sex, in the toes).

Not that I'm saying there isn't something wrong. I suppose I want to know now, too, though I've never thought it was more than a body reacting to overexertion. It's never worried me.
posted by dreamsign at 10:34 PM on August 8, 2005

Response by poster: well the "shake" is mostly present in my arms and hand (when i am holding somthing, etc) after about 10-20 minutes of cool down they go away. The tingle in the nose and muscle twitchs never lasted for more then a few minutes after my exercise
posted by crewshell at 11:32 PM on August 8, 2005

Yep. When I first started on "real" cardio I remember glasses of ice water being completely unstable, like parkinson's-style shakies.
posted by SpookyFish at 2:08 AM on August 9, 2005

One thing that happens to me sometimes is that the evaporation of sweat off my body in the desert heat gives me shivers.

'Course, if you're worried about your health, you should see a doctor. There's nothing wrong with a little preventative medicine.
posted by ph00dz at 7:46 AM on August 9, 2005

I have something called familial tremor (aka essential tremor) that makes me shake a bit from time to time. The most dramatic shakes I get are right after a workout or intense activity.

My shakes are pretty much always in my hands regardless of which muscles I've been exercising.

In my experience, the more often I work out, the less this happens.
posted by mmoncur at 8:07 AM on August 9, 2005

Probably a low potassium level from sweating. The gatorade sounds like a good thing to drink immediately beforehand to reduce the muscle twitching. I don't know but hazard a guess to say that lactic acid metabolism has a contributing role also. As for the nose tingling...I have no idea.
posted by peacay at 8:32 AM on August 9, 2005

Best answer: Interesting question and I am guessing the shaking and twitching are coincidental--the twitches(and possibly nose tingling) are probably benign fasciculations--no known cause--some elaborate theories as to why some persons are more prone to them--usually associated with fatigue, stress, caffeine, viral illnesses.etc--in the absence of muscle weakness they are almost always benign--the shaking is more interesting--if it is limited to post exertion I would not worry--could be fatigue, unwitting tensing of muscles during running, etc--if it does occur at other times you might want to get it checked out--I doubt if it is hypoglycemia or low potassium--it would not correct itself so quickly if it was either of those things--unless it is in fact relieved by a sugared electrolyte replacement--my guess is it is just one of those quirks--IANAD so have at it
posted by rmhsinc at 12:22 PM on August 9, 2005

rhmsinc, have--you--been--*pant*--out--running?
posted by gentle at 8:46 AM on August 12, 2005