SUMMARY: The “jelly legs” feeling, which typically refers to feelings of weakness, dizziness, or loss of control in the legs, is often caused by a rush of adrenaline taking blood away from the legs, though there may be other causes.
In fact, stress and chronic stress often cause heavy, tired, jelly-like, rubbery, weak, and stiff legs feelings because of how stress affects the body's muscles, including those in the legs.
People will often experience shaky or weak legs when dealing with vascular issues in the leg, like deep vein thrombosis or blood clots. Clots are very serious if untreated because they could break off into the bloodstream and travel to an artery in the lungs, blocking blood flow.
Leg weakness can be caused by a variety of medical conditions, some of which are serious. Possible causes include stroke, systemic diseases, inflammatory conditions, nerve damage, muscle disorders, and medication side effects.
Muscle weakness in the legs may indicate a neuromuscular disease is present. These diseases lead to a loss of functioning in nerves and muscles throughout the body. They include muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis (MS), myasthenia gravis and fibromyalgia.
As a result, people with heart failure often feel weak (especially in their arms and legs), tired and have difficulty performing ordinary activities such as walking, climbing stairs or carrying groceries.
Peripheral nerves
The nerves outside of your brain and spinal cord can become damaged, which is called peripheral neuropathy. Weakness, numbness, pain and balance issues can be caused by peripheral neuropathy because it makes it difficult to determine where your body is relative to other objects or the ground.
The “jelly legs” feeling, which typically refers to feelings of weakness, dizziness, or loss of control in the legs, is often caused by a rush of adrenaline taking blood away from the legs, though there may be other causes.
Vitamin D helps your body use calcium. But when you're deficient in this vitamin, your legs may feel weak, sore and heavy. A vitamin E deficiency may be another reason your legs feel heavy after a run.
Often, the cause of weakness or pain in the legs when walking is a narrowing of the space around nerves that carry signals to the lower part of the body. When symptoms affect your legs, the condition is typically lumbar spinal stenosis.
One of the ways in which the body prepares for this action is to redirect blood flow to the areas most needed, including the legs, which are needed to run away from danger. Increased blood flow to the legs can make them feel weak, tingly or like jelly.
Vitamin D, magnesium, and calcium are all quite important for building bones and muscle tissue. Moreover, vitamin D deficiencies are exceedingly common among the elderly, and research has clarified that correcting that deficiency with supplements can help improve a person's strength.
Combining running and walking with strength training and other forms of aerobic exercise like swimming, elliptical training and cycling can add variety to your workout and can greatly improve your performance. Sports like soccer and basketball are great for improving leg power as well.
The weakness can make your legs feel heavy, as if they are being weighed down by something. They may also ache and hurt. Some people with MS describe it as like having bags of sand attached to their legs. This muscle weakness combined with MS fatigue can be upsetting.
Losing your balance while walking, or feeling imbalanced, can result from: Vestibular problems. Abnormalities in your inner ear can cause a sensation of a floating or heavy head and unsteadiness in the dark. Nerve damage to your legs (peripheral neuropathy).
Warning signs and symptoms of heart failure include shortness of breath, chronic coughing or wheezing, swelling, fatigue, loss of appetite, and others. Heart failure means the heart has failed to pump the way it should in order to circulate oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.
People with heart failure have a tendency to retain fluid. This appears as swollen ankles and legs because of excess fluid building up. You may notice that your shoes don't fit and socks appear tight or leave a prominent indent above the ankle.
A feeling of sudden leg weakness, causing your legs to give out or buckle can be alarming. Weakness in your leg(s) may occur from problems in the nerves and/or muscles in your lower body and is usually treatable. Rarely, the underlying cause may be a serious medical condition requiring immediate medical attention.
Sarcopenia is the age-related progressive loss of muscle mass and strength. The main symptom of the condition is muscle weakness. Sarcopenia is a type of muscle atrophy primarily caused by the natural aging process. Scientists believe being physically inactive and eating an unhealthy diet can contribute to the disease.
Several medical conditions can make a person feel weak, shaky, and tired. They include dehydration, irregular heart beat, Parkinson's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Treatment will depend on the condition a person has.