Health and fitness play a big role in everyone’s life, from childhood to the last days. Having a fit and healthy body is everyone’s dream and to achieve this goal, many of you follow the suggestions of different health guides, trainers, nutritionists and fitness trainers to stay healthy.
But we still have many unusual doubts and questions about us that we feel shy to share with anyone.
Among all this, there is a very common question: do our legs get thick when running?
This is a very common question among women as this characteristic is not desired by most of them.
This article will explain the complete phenomenon regarding what is really going on and what are the ways in which you can increase or decrease the size of your legs and thighs.
Running and its impacts
Many people around the world choose to run as the first step to getting in shape and staying healthy, and most of them are aimed at losing weight. After following a running routine for a few weeks, instead of getting thin, they see their legs get thicker and in turn, they become unmotivated. There can be many reasons why this is happening.
For that, we must understand some elements before and in the last part of the article, we will explore for you different reasons for thickening of the thighs.
Running is a high impact sport and our legs are at the heart of the work during the race, because at each stage they have to support the equivalent weight of your whole body and during this process many things start to happen. occur in your entire body affecting the legs in a major way.
Our legs have different muscle fibers which are responsible for your body’s responsiveness, strength and endurance. Our legs have 4 main muscle groups:
- Quadriceps – Your increasing leg size is mainly due to these muscles, their rapid contraction during the run makes your legs taller. It is one of the main muscles in the front of your thigh. They are connected to the hips and have a great effect on your walking style but are mainly responsible for the stability of your body.
- Hamstrings – These are the most important muscles in your thigh muscles. The hamstrings are mainly responsible for the length of your legs. Due to running, these muscles also contract for the duration of the run and are responsible for most of the work done by your legs during the session.
- Gluteus Maximus – These are the largest muscles in your body and above the hamstrings. These muscles support your body and your back during the stride.
- Calves – Calves are lower leg muscles that widen during the run to support the ankle, joints and knee. They push the body forward and support the ankle. They are responsible for the takeoff speed of the ground and help you get started.
So basically all of these muscles are responsible for your running and the amount of work they do is indicated by the size of your legs.
Not only that, there are also other factors such as your genetic traits, your past injuries or any other event that caused the deformation of these muscles.
Now, it is absolutely clear that any exercise involving muscle contraction leads to the enlargement of this part, so this process is also joined by the increase in lactic acid during the race. With the increase in lactic acid, the muscles swell and tear, but once healed, they get bigger and stronger.
Another factor involved in the increased muscle size of the legs is related to the way you run:
Sprinting – Sprinting is an activity that potentially uses most of your muscles. Your reactivity and agility are demonstrated during a sprint, so in an equivalent way, this basic type of race builds more muscles and will make you leaner.
Marathons – Marathons are long-distance races that are generally run at lower speeds. Long-distance runs are more effective for thinner legs because these runs lead to burning more calories and therefore resist muscle growth.
Few factors other than running that affect the shape of your legs can be:
Genetics – Your genetics play a very important role in defining the shape of your body. Genetics can define the number of muscle fibers in your legs, and their specifications, it also has a hold on the time you take to gain or lose your mass. No matter what type of sport you do, the activity you do ends up burning calories but your whole body. It depends on your genetics how much your legs will lose.
The way you train – As it is aptly said, “the more intensely you train, the more muscle you will build” is fully valid here. Weightlifting, high interval training, jumping, and sprinting lead to greater muscle accumulation than long-distance running and low-intensity training. You should all be much more aware of having a low-strength start and always keep the intensity of the workout at moderate. Getting enough rest after your sessions is also very important. Running on an incline also requires more muscle power, so try running on smooth surfaces.
Your Diet – Your diet plays a major role in every activity you do to get in shape. Eating healthy foods and doing effective exercises can significantly reduce your efforts to get your desired body shape. A common mistake that most people make after running is to eat a large number of carbohydrates right after or before training, and this should be strongly avoided. To get in good shape, your body needs to burn your fat, but instead, it starts burning the carbohydrates you eat.
Now you are very well known about the muscles, the parts of the legs that thicken, and the different factors for which your thighs and your legs widen when running. All of these factors may differ from individual to individual, but the most important thing to keep in mind is to find out your factor and start working on it.
Running is one of the best ways to reduce weight, burn calories, and stay fit. This not only makes your legs stronger but also increases your flexibility. It’s a great way to improve our cardiovascular system and, ultimately, to function well.
We will also explore how to get thinner or thicker legs, but as it is said that everything is beneficial if done in the right way, so before that, an important question to be answered:
What’s the best way to run
As said above, running is a high-impact sport, our legs have to suffer a lot after a running session, so the most important thing for the legs is enough time to recover the exhausted muscles. This will not only improve strength but will also help reduce the thickness of the legs.
Running partially is evil, but running consistently is the way we can improve our performance, pace, and distance, it’s the best way to get the fittest body.
Never underestimate the benefits of a combination of running and walking simultaneously. It is the best way to increase your body activity, burn more calories, and a huge gain in endurance.
Additional exercises like pull-ups, pull-ups, rows, stretches, etc. with running help you get a better overall physique. In addition, routine hydration, good sleep, and a healthy diet are as important as running.
Ways to reduce the thickening of the thighs and legs during the race:
So we come to our conclusion “is it possible for you to reduce the thickness of the legs”? Yes, we can absolutely do this by taking a few steps and controlling our daily activities, and changing a few ways regarding your run.
Here are a few things to keep in mind to achieve this goal:
Resistance training – One of the most effective ways to train is resistance training. The moment you start to feel the size of your legs increasing, stop running for a while. Your newly formed muscle will degenerate, leaving you with the same size as before. This applies not only to your legs but to any part of your body that you want to be the same size as before.
Long-distance running – Sprinting is the one thing you should definitely avoid right now. Sprinting requires extra endurance, the extra power that ends up building your muscles. You should always go for marathons, and long-distance runs at lower gaits which will help you maintain your lean form, and flexibility and stimulate less muscle growth.
Eating Habits – Here’s another important thing to discuss with you, you all have control over your eating habits. Eat healthy foods, and stay less on carbohydrates rich in vitamins and proteins. Fiber is also necessary in this plan and staying hydrated is also necessary. Take lots of vitamins and fluids, this will regulate the lactic acid content. You have to take care of one more thing: never eat carbohydrate-rich food before and after the running sessions because your fats must be burned instead, your carbohydrates will provide the required energy.
Relaxation time – After each workout, be it running, weightlifting or something else, our muscles swell and need time to repair. Keeping this number in mind, never overload yourself with running sessions and always have time between your workouts so that your muscles can repair themselves.
Always keep in mind running on a flat surface instead of a slope and try to maintain perfect posture during the race as this can also affect your other systems.
Balancing is also necessary during the race, make sure that during the race the whole body weight is divided equally on your two legs, in case if one leg faces more weight for an extended period, this can cause deformation and risk of injury. the leg also increases.
These are a few things you can do to reduce the size of your thighs and legs, try them to suit you and your body shape, you will surely see the changes you need in you.
Summary
Everyone has a different shape and legs. Many people have a problem with the thickening of the thighs and legs after their run and other workouts. This may be due to their hard training or genetics, but it is mainly you who define the size of your legs.
Our body tends to make the muscles stiffer and stronger once they are torn or worn out. This is the case with the legs once we train hard with our legs, the muscles swell and tear. These muscles are repaired and get bigger and stronger than before, this is the main reason why our legs get wider when running.
Your training intensity and training schedules also define what your muscles will look like. Eating habits and calorie intake are other major factor.
Running requires a lot of energy and its proper way should be defined for people with different requirements. For people who want lean legs, it is always advisable to do long runs at low speed, as this will cause a large amount of calories burned, which will ultimately reach your goals.
Your diet should have fewer carbohydrates and more vitamins with fluids at regular intervals, deep sleep is also important before running sessions.
Resistance training should be followed as your muscles will have enough time to return to a normal state and heavyweight exercises are not strictly for you. Always run on a flat, low-speed surface.
So, this article has explained to you every fact about how it works, understanding everything at the same time is a little difficult task, but if you follow, you will surely start to see changes in yourself and it would become a much easier task. thereafter.
Tell me how it all went so that your road reaches slender legs.
