Swollen legs and training: a combo that may seem strange, even absurd! But it can happen if you don’t do things right. Small involuntary errors which can, however, demotivate us and make us believe that training is useless.
Let’s face it, changing your lifestyle and starting to train regularly is not always easy; it requires commitment and effort. Seeing good results (be careful, we’re not talking about miracles!) as soon as possible can be a valid incentive to do well and continue over time.
This is why finding ourselves with swollen and hard legs and seeing the scale go up instead of going down can push us to give up everything prematurely. What to do then? Let’s see together a series of useful tips to make your training more effective right away.
Fitness and retention
To have lean and athletic thighs you need to work not only on muscle tone but also on reducing water retention and subcutaneous fat through a balanced diet.
If your goal is to reduce the circumference of your thighs you will have to psychologically “endure” that necessary “transition” period during which you will have toned legs but not yet with the desired appearance. With proper training and nutrition, excess fluid and fat will definitely go away. Also keep in mind that if you do workouts based on toning, in the minutes following the workout, you will have a feeling of “swelling” due to the normal increase in blood flow in the muscle groups involved.
These are temporary effects that can easily be counteracted, let’s see how!
Swollen legs and training: things not to do
Let’s see together what not to do to make your workouts more effective and avoid the annoying inconvenience of swollen legs.
How to Unveil the Truth About Stretching and Weight Training
First of all, you need to avoid giving up everything thinking that workouts will make your legs swell. It’s something that can scare and demotivate, especially the female gender, but it’s a false myth that needs to be dispelled.
Especially in the first period of a new workout, or in any case when you start training after a long time, the muscles retain a lot of liquids. It is therefore not a question of fat or excess muscle but of water retention.
But how to combat water retention?
- Drink the right amount of fluids. Water, but also draining herbal teas and green tea.
- Reduce (without completely eliminating) salt and overly salty packaged foods,
- Take care of your diet by choosing foods rich in fiber and liquids such as fruit and vegetables
- After your shower, do a good self-massage. Start from the bottom upwards with circular movements, perhaps using an oil (almond, argan, coconut, olive) or a moisturizing cream.
Swollen legs: avoid too heavy workouts
Often, grueling workouts are chosen to obtain the desired results as quickly as possible. How many times do we start training by imposing expiry dates on ourselves such as “for the summer” or “lose 10 kg in 3 months” or even “to wear the wedding dress”?
Rushing, however, is counterproductive. Therefore avoid training that is too heavy. And, again, avoid massacring specific muscle groups to see that particular area of the body reduced. There is no such thing as localized weight loss and training your legs every day to remove centimeters from your thighs is not good! Rest is as fundamental as training because it allows our body to repair the micro muscular traumas that are created during the training session, making us stronger and ready to gradually increase the intensity.
Swollen legs and training: what to do?
But what to do then? Start with a workout suited to your level of preparation and gradually increase the intensity of your workouts.
Finish your workout smartly
What does it mean to finish the workout smartly? Good microcirculation is essential to help dispose of training waste and to avoid aggravating the water retention that causes swelling. Here’s what to do!
- Especially if you have a gynoid physique you should end your workouts with an exercise for the upper body in order to stimulate the microcirculation and recall the blood flow towards the upper limbs.
- Once you have finished your workout, lie down on the ground, lifting your legs and placing them against the wall. Try to stay in this position for at least 10-15 minutes.
Respect the rest days
Rest is essential to allow our body to recover from the fatigue of physical activity. It allows the muscle to rebuild and strengthen and gives the body the time necessary to restore optimal balance, allowing us to reduce water retention. Generally speaking, it is necessary to adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes correct and adequate nutrition, the right level of training and sufficient recovery time.
Muscle pain: what are DOMS?
It often happens that those who start practicing any sporting activity from scratch experience severe pain in the following two or three days . They are almost always mistakenly attributed to the accumulation of lactic acid . Instead, it is DOMS = Delayed onset muscle soreness. In fact, the accumulation of lactic acid is felt during training when you feel that localized burning in the muscles that prevents you from continuing. This is because there is such a high concentration of lactic acid in the blood that it forces you to stop and rest to dispose of it. The restoration of lactic acid at the blood level occurs within a few minutes, and within two or three hours at the muscle level. Never not after 24/72 hours!
DOMS are caused by micro-tears of the muscles caused by eccentric muscle work (i.e. in the phase where the muscle resists the weight, such as in the return of an exercise with weights) and occurs especially in people who are poorly trained in that type of work , but it can also appear in trained people who have significantly changed their exercises and put unusual strain on their muscles.
It is a normal physiological response to greater effort , or carrying out physical activities that you are not used to. The pain and discomfort associated with DOMS usually peaks within 24 to 48 hours following exercise, and subsides within 96 hours. These are perhaps the most annoying side effects for continuing training. Generally, a greater perception of pain occurs with greater intensity efforts, and a more frequent performance of unknown activities. Other factors that influence the formation of DOMS are muscle stiffness, contraction speed, fatigue, and contraction angle.
Countering DOMS
1. STRETCHING Doing a stretching session of at least 20 minutes after a training session (not the next day but immediately after training) heavy with eccentric work helps you in recovery and helps to ease the delayed soreness.
2. HOT SALT WATER BATH Some coaches recommend a nice hot bath in the tub with two tablespoons of coarse salt and one of bicarbonate dissolved in water; soak in the water for at least twenty minutes and go out avoiding getting cold.
3. MASSAGE A nice massage helps to relax the muscles and reduce pain, even better if done with the addition of decontracting essential oils such as basil, Roman chamomile and marjoram oil. For cramps , again, it is possible to mix a little peppermint oil with lemongrass oil, perhaps also using a carrier product such as coconut or sweet almond oil.
