Pickle juice for muscle cramps: effective remedy or sports myth?

If you’ve ever been stopped dead in your tracks during exercise by a muscle cramp, you know you’ll try almost anything to make it stop. There have been countless theories and remedies put forward to explain and treat a dreaded muscle cramp, but science still has a bit of catching up to do. But there is one particular treatment that has been gaining traction by athletes as a secret weapon to treat cramps. And it is one that sounds more like a pregnancy craving than a sports supplement: it is pickle juice. Is this just another passing fad, or is there actual science behind downing a shot of pickle brine to uncramp a muscle? In this podcast episode, I’ll cut through the noise to look at the evidence and the surprising mechanism of how it may work and spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with electrolytes. Links referred to in the podcast Pickle juice ingestion in electrically induced muscle cramps AIS fact sheet on pickle juice Episode transcript To access the full episode transcript, go to the following link and select the individual podcast episode and then click on the ‘Transcript’ tab Connect with me Instagram doctimcrowe Facebook Thinking Nutrition X CroweTim

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Pickle juice for muscle cramps: effective remedy or sports myth? is an episode from Thinking Nutrition by Dr Tim Crowe.

This episode is 10:51 long.

This episode was published on Feb 2, 2026.

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