Leg muscles hurt; learn why you feel sore muscles after a workout and how to speed up your recovery. People often do not pay much attention to painful sensations in the legs, believing their cause lies in solid physical exertion, uncomfortable shoes, etc. It is possible for these causes of leg pain to occur. If the painful sensation is not intense and, after rest, soon enough disappears, there is no reason to worry. However, if you experience pain frequently, you should think about other, more severe causes of pain. Let’s figure out together why the leg muscles hurt.
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Which leg do muscles hurt the most?
It must say right away that the muscles of the lower leg and thigh can hurt due to intense physical exertion after training and during the development of degenerative processes in the knee joints and bones, with problems with blood vessels or nerve endings. There can be many reasons for appearance pain. In medicine, pain in the muscles is called myopathy.
The leg muscles can be divided into four groups:
- The pelvic muscles are mucous membranes.
- The forces of the back and front of the thigh are the quadriceps and hamstrings.
- Calf muscles – calves and triceps.
- Powers of the leg.
In addition, you should understand not only why the leg muscles hurt but also where the pain occurs. It can be not only muscles but also bones or joints.
Why leg muscles hurt – main reasons
Since there can be many reasons for leg muscle pain, your primary task is to understand exactly why your leg muscles are hurting. It is essential for subsequent treatment.
First, we should consider the physiological reasons for this phenomenon. First of all, this is muscle strain in an insufficiently trained person. The cause of these pains is lactic acid. This substance can accumulate in muscle tissue under intense physical exertion. Among athletes, such pains are usually called dizziness.
More often than not, they are not strong and occur in the muscles you have been training. For example, after performing a squat, pain most often occurs in the powers of the thigh, which are most involved in performing this movement.
Another cause of pain in the leg muscles can be prolonged immobility of the lower limbs. It is possible after a long journey or flight or during layovers. The cause of these pains lies in the stagnation of blood in the veins due to the lack of work of the muscle pump of the legs, which is designed to accelerate the flow of blood from the lower limbs to the heart. As a result, the nerve endings of the blood vessels are activated, causing pain.
In this regard, it should note that stagnation of venous blood is one of the main reasons for the development of varicose veins. To prevent this disease, rest your feet on a pillow after returning home from work, thus accelerating blood flow in the lower limbs. Suppose none of the reasons described above apply to you; the pain is acute and chronic. In that case, you should consider the possibility of an underlying medical condition.
Muscle damage
Myositis can occur due to inflammatory processes in muscle tissue, called myositis. Myositis affects the muscle tissue fibers and can happen in any skeletal muscle. If the cause is myositis, the pain is chronic and increases with movement. If an infection causes the inflammatory process, the body temperature also rises.
Diseases of the spinal cord and ligaments
A person often thinks of pain in a joint as muscle pain. Independently in this situation, you will be unable to answer the question – of why the leg muscles hurt. To do this, you need to see a doctor and do a diagnostic examination.
Various spinal cord pathological processes, especially the lumbar spine, can also be considered muscle pain.
In this condition, one of two types of painful sensation may appear:
- Chronic pain caused. Say, a herniated disc.
- Sharp pain in the back of the leg, characterized as lumbago and similar to an electric shock.
Diseases of the vascular system
Suppose we talk about why leg muscles hurt. In that case, we cannot fail to mention the possibility of damage to blood vessels (arteries and veins). Most often, this is due to a narrowing of the lumen of the blood vessels, which interferes with blood flow. Most often, pain associated with vascular diseases occurs in the calf muscles. Symptoms of vascular disease in the legs may include a decrease in the temperature of the legs and a weakening of the pulse in this area of the legs, muscle atrophy, or hair loss on the lower limbs.
If your leg pain is persistent and continues for a long time, you need to see a doctor who can determine exactly why your leg muscles are hurting.
