What Do You To Prevent Muscle Cramping During Games?

While cramping, mustard is A++. Immediate relief. 

You can't stock pile the water  days ahead of time. Putting water into your bladder and peeing it out days ahead of time does not help. You have to replace the water on the fly.

The drinking has to occur during the games.  Someone else mentioned tennis players eating 1/2 a banana and they use the same approach with water/electrolytes. They take small drinks at every change over. Your son's solution may be to simply carefully drink small amounts of water/sports drink every time he comes off the field, during timeouts etc.

Tonic water w guinine

this works very well and quickly. 
have them drink some before and have it in a bottle for during game. 
I promise this will work. 

Tonic water w guinine

this works very well and quickly. 
have them drink some before and have it in a bottle for during game. 
I promise this will work. 

marathons and long distance triathlons, I swear by salt from BASE Performance. A lot of people drink pickle juice but the thought alone makes me want to puke. 

Mustard packets! 🤢

Use epsom salts added to water in a spray on bottle. Replenishes both magnesium and sodium. 

3, 4, and 5 are versions of 2, and these are indeed important. Eat healthy (mostly plant based) and electrolytes shouldn't be a problem -- meaning you won't need to go out of the way to get more.

However, the most important thing to do is add a stretching regimen throughout. Stretching isn't just a thing you do for a few minutes after warming up or working out. It's a huge part of the workout. Get a foam roller. Roll out each muscle for 30+ seconds. Focus on specific spots that feel tight. Don't just do a long roll on each muscle. Really try to get into the fibers.

Try yoga.

Warm up properly and stay warm during the practice/game, stretch well after warming up. Your warm up should have you sweating. When I played sports in highschool coaches would have us do some calisthenics and then stretch. This is not enough. Stay hydrated. Fire any coach who suggests water is for the weak. 

Check out Andrew Huberman on YouTube.  He has multiple lectures/casts on issues that relate to athletes and references muscle cramping (including sodium intake, hydration, stretching properly, other supplementation, and fitness protocols.) In particular the sessions with Andy Galpin, a PT for professional athletes, are very informative.  Dr. Huberman is a neuro scientist at Stanford and backs his talks with extensive research into existing literature, no matter the topic.  And there are a lot of topics.  These are lengthy sessions, but super-thorough with actionable information.

In the search type in “Andrew Huberman on hydration” then pick the link with Andrew Galpin - it is an excerpt from a much longer podcast.

I usually eat Snickers with almonds.

I basically missed the entire second half of our first game one year because of leg cramps. Our team doc said I needed to start drinking more water all week and not just the day before and don’t drink so much Gatorade. He also said to stretch a few minutes as soon as I woke up and right before bed. This was like twenty five years ago and there might be something more effective today, but I didn’t cramp up again during any games after that. I would wake up in the middle of the night with severe cramps after the games. So it wasn’t entirely effective, but I didn’t always remember to do the stretches before bed.

Potassium.  Bananas. 

I’m a roofing contractor in Florida. Before taking the state test for the license my first 17 years was as a foreman running large commercial flat roof jobs,the last 7 a manufacturers rep. In my day hot asphalt was about 70% of the market. For 2 years I swung the mop. About 80#s of 450 degree liquid asphalt. I would sometimes swing the mop for a solid 9 hours with temperatures around 90 and humidity in the 60’s in the summer. There were days my whole body would cramp. From advice from an old timer I started eating a banana every morning and drank a 32 oz Gatorade on the way to the job. That really helped, only cramped up 1 day out of 10. Throughout the day I would drink Gatorade,the powder mix in our coolers. At night another 32 oz Gatorade and 4-6 oz of pickle juice(along with a couple beers of course.
    I haven’t physically worked years but in a supervisory capacity. It’s been brutally hot in south Florida this summer and from just being on the roof within 15 minutes I’m soaking wet with sweat. I drink way too much Red Bull which is the worst thing btw,next to monster. OSHA actually calls out Monster specifically in their training on hydration. I still eat a banana every day and drink pickle juice at night. Been doing this for years and only cram up occasionally. I think the most important thing is to be fully hydrated before the activity. Once you are dehydrated it’s very difficult to nearly impossible to rehydrate in real time. 

Stretching.  Assuming they eat plenty and aren't walking around thirsty all day, electrolytes are not an issue for them most likely.