Targeting active consumers, HotShot launches to break down muscle cramps

BOSTON -- HotShot on Thursday launched a sports nutrition shot formulated to help prevent exercise-associated muscle cramps. Millions of athletes and fitness enthusiasts suffer from them – even the best trained and most nutritionally-savvy, the company noted. They're painful, unpredictable and can rob an athlete of performance and confidence.

"I have been an endurance athlete for over 20 years," noted Craig "Crowie" Alexander, Five-time Ironman and Ironman 70.3 World Champion. "Muscle cramps are a source of concern for me because they put a brake on your momentum. They can strike at the beginning of the race or when you are meters from the finish line. A cramp can paralyze you mentally, and physically, and cost you crucial time. So HotShot is a big confidence-builder and game changer in endurance sports, knowing you won't be stopped in your tracks by cramping."

Breakthrough research, to be presented June 2 at the American College of Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting and published in the Journal of the American Medical Athletic Association later this month, has led to the development of a new sports shot, HotShot, that is scientifically proven to prevent and treat muscle cramps by stopping them where they start - at the nerve.

Rod MacKinnon, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, along with colleague Bruce Bean, a neurobiology professor at Harvard Medical School, sought to find a cure for cramping after a life-threatening event occurred off the coast of Cape Cod in 2010. The pair was enjoying a long-distance sea kayaking trip when almost simultaneously their arms seized up miles from shore. Both were surprised by the muscle cramps because they had taken precautions to stay well-hydrated and topped up on electrolytes.

Curious as to what was known about the cause and cure of muscle cramps, MacKinnon and Bean dug into the literature and realized that cramping is not caused by dehydration or electrolyte imbalance, but instead originates from hyper-excited motor-nerves in the spinal cord.

Building off MacKinnon's Nobel Prize-winning research on ion channels, they hypothesized that activating certain Transient Receptor Potential ion channels in sensory nerves in the mouth, throat and esophagus could send signals to calm those hyper-excited motor neurons, thereby stopping muscle cramps before they start.

"This is a brand new concept in sports nutrition: how to stimulate sensory nerves as a way to affect your muscle function," MacKinnon stated. "This is cool science. The breakthrough and what we now know is how to prevent and treat muscle cramps. However, what intrigues me is what I'm hearing from athletes about other potential benefits. This is only the beginning."

HotShot is a 1.7 fluid ounce sports shot that facilitates the synchronization of communication between the nerve and muscle thereby giving athletes greater control over the way their nerves and muscles work together, boosting their Neuro Muscular Performance to prevent and treat muscle cramps.

The proprietary HotShot formulation is NSF Certified for Sport and has been extensively tested by amateur and world-class athletes across endurance sports, track and field, professional football and tennis. In addition to elite athletes like Alexander, who are the company's brand ambassadors and rely on the product's NMP benefits, are U.S. National Team distance runners expected to compete on the world stage this summer, includingn Shalane Flanagan, Amy Cragg, Colleen Quigley and Evan Jager, as well as neurosurgical consultant to the Denver Broncos Chad Prusmack.

HotShot is available online at www.TeamHOTSHOT.com and at select specialty retailers in Los Angeles, Boulder, Colo. and Boston.  A single serve bottle is $7, while six-bottle and 12-bottle packs are $35 and $65, respectively.