To combat lower extremity weakness in your legs consider participating in daily exercise and a healthy diet. Elevate your legs: Poor circulation can put pressure onto your leg and affect the bodies lower extremities. When the legs and feet are elevated 6 – 12 inches above the heart, it relieves pressure from the legs.
"Older people can definitely regain good leg strength if they do regular strengthening exercises and increase the intensity of their exercises in a slow and safe way.
Weak legs are a common problem in seniors because we lose muscle mass as we get older. As we age, we tend to become less active, and this causes a reduction in our muscle strength. While some physical conditions can cause leg weakness, chances are, your weak leg muscles are part of the aging process.
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
Vitamin B1 deficiency can cause heavy and tired legs after running, muscle cramps, fatigue, and odd sensations in your legs and feet. Some foods rich in vitamin B1 include whole grains, vegetables, legumes, milk products, and meat.
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.
You know to drink milk — it can help fight leg heaviness when coupled with vitamin D. 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.
Leg weakness can result from sciatica, spine conditions, neuromuscular disease, and certain medications. Sudden leg weakness may be a sign of stroke. Call 911 for any sudden muscle weakness, particularly if it occurs with facial drooping, severe headache, or slurred speech.
Seniors Can Still Bulk Up On Muscle By Pressing Iron Our muscle mass decreases at surprising rates as we get older. But researchers found that people older than 50 can not only maintain but actually increase their muscle mass by lifting weights.
Sometimes leg weakness may be improved but not totally cured by treatments like physical therapy after the initial underlying cause is addressed. However, some causes are irreversible, and these include severe damage to the nerves, spinal cord and/or brain.
Strength training is the secret to muscle growth for older adults. It's best to do this with light weights and to work slowly. Slow movements with lighter weights force your muscles to work harder. If you don't have a set of weights, you can use your body weight with resistance exercises like push-ups and squats.
Causes of nerve damage include direct injury, tumor growth on the spine, prolonged pressure on the spine, and diabetes. A spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injuries are among the most common reasons that legs give out. These injuries vary in severity but should always be evaluated immediately by a spine specialist.
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.
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.
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.
As we age the big muscles in our thighs tend to lose strength (particularly if we spend a lot of time sitting down), which puts us off doing things that require us to get down on the floor in case we can't get back up again.
Most can expect to see noticeable muscle growth within eight weeks of starting a new strength training routine. Linking this with aches/pains/injuries when seeing your Physiotherapist, most people look for a quick fix and once they are out of pain then they think they are cured.