Every once in awhile, sports nutrition researchers change their minds. When they do, a common practice that athletes thought was based on solid science may be exposed as a myth. One recent example is the practice of consuming salt tablets during races to prevent muscle cramps. Scientists now know that exercise-associated muscle cramps are not caused by the loss of electrolyte minerals in sweat, as they had believed since the 1930s. Rather, they are caused by an abnormal nervous system response to extreme fatigue in individual working muscles.
