My legs are amazing! Ten out of ten amazing!
I’m not being vain. I’m not even thinking about how they look, but what they do for me – that’s amazing.
They’ve supported me literally for as long as I can remember – longer in fact. Yours are too, by the way, and I wonder if we give them the credit and the care that they deserve.
I have a friend who is a wheelchair user, and she always playfully reminds me to appreciate the wonder of these amazing legs of mine. It’s always a sobering reminder to me that we take so much for granted.
Legs are vital in essentially everything we do. They keep us upright, enable us to walk and generate the forces necessary to complete every-day tasks from pressing down on the accelerator pedal in the car to kicking a football, but when they hurt, you really know about it, don’t you?
Experiencing leg pain can make even the most mundane tasks difficult, and in some cases impossible – it can be debilitating.
‘Leg pain’ is an extremely broad term. We experience pain in the legs for many reasons, ranging from muscle sprains to bone injuries to cramps. The good news is that your Hydropool Hot Tub has been designed with your amazing legs in mind.
As always, we advise seeking medical advice for any discomfort or pain. What I have tried to do in this blog is to take feedback from Hydropool customers and back up this anecdotal evidence with scientific and medical studies. Your spa can complement medical treatments and advice.
1 - The Warm Water Effect
Your natural human reaction to experiencing pain is to rub the injured area, you do this without even thinking, it’s second nature and it works! It works by generating heat through friction and you are instinctively and intuitively ‘programmed’ to do this – amazing! The use of heat to numb pain is also common in medical environments, heat packs are frequently used by medical professionals to numb injuries, for instance. You can imagine the benefit of submerging yourself in 40 degrees of healing warmth.
For years, little was known about why heat helped reduce pain, but recent studies have shed light on the relationship between the two. In short, the nerve cells in charge of noticing changes in the bodies core temperature (Thermoreceptors) are located in the same parts of the body as the nerve cells that allow us to feel pain (Nociceptive Impulses). It is believed that when heat is applied to a painful area, the feeling of the heat overpowers that of the pain.
So, when you feel leg pain, stepping into your heated Hydropool Hot Tub can help your body to override the feeling of pain, allowing you to relax pain free. Many athletes use hot tubs as part of their recovery process as the massaging and compressive effect on loosened and relaxed muscles eases pain and reduces injury risk.
2 - Muscle Strengthening
Whilst a short-term numbing of the pain is great, a long-term fix to leg pain is what you really want. Thankfully, your Hydropool hot tub can provide both short-term and long-term solutions to leg pain. Again, some of more athletic Hydropool owners compare the benefits to those of hydrotherapy and there are scientific foundations to this.
According to Mayo Clinic (2021), most leg pain is caused by the wear and tear and overuse of soft tissue, including muscles, ligaments, and tendons. To repair the soft tissue, a higher supply of oxygen and key nutrients is required via the bloodstream. When you step into warm water, your heart responds by increasing the frequency in which it beats, allowing for a higher volume of blood to be pumped around the body and into the damaged muscles. Subsequently, your damaged leg muscles receive a higher amount of oxygen and those healing nutrients, allowing them to begin to repair the wear and tear damage and, in turn, gradually reduce the amount of leg pain you experience.
3 - Joint Pain
One third of adults suffer from joint pains, with pain in the knee joints appearing most common (WebMD, 2021). Due to its design, your Hydropool hot tub can aid with joint pains and stiffness, as well as reduce the risk of them occurring in future.
When in warm water, your muscles relax and loosen, therefore greatly improving the range of motion available in those previously stiff joints. Furthermore, water creates a ‘little to no’ impact environment on the muscles and joints, meaning almost no pressure is placed on them during flexibility-based exercises. In your Hydropool, you can strengthen your joints whilst also mitigating the risk of causing further damage, reducing the risk of future joint pains.
4 - Exercise
Exercise is commonly prescribed to those with leg pain. Aside from an improvement in general fitness, exercise can help improve muscle strength, flexibility whilst reducing muscle pain, stiffness and inflammation. Both Hydropool hot tubs and swim spas provide the perfect exercise environment for those with leg pain looking to perform a wide variety of exercises.
Resistance exercises can easily be performed in a Hydropool hot tub and the benefits of swimming are well documented, with a swim spa you don’t even have to leave home.
As water provides a low impact environment, it is possible to strengthen your leg muscles, making them less susceptible to injury, without the risk of causing further injury to already damaged muscles.
You can also improve your flexibility in a Hydropool hot tub. When warm, your muscles become less stiff, allowing them to stretch further. This can help reduce muscle pain during movement, as well as improve the range of motion available in your joints.
5 - Post Exercise Pain
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), is an extremely common occurrence after beginning a new exercise programme or increasing the intensity of your existing programme. During exercise, tiny micro tears develop within the working muscles, this is what causes the pain when we experience DOMS.
As well as pain, DOMS can cause our muscles to feel extremely stiff, potentially making your everyday tasks much more difficult.
Fortunately, your Hydropool provides a simple and relaxing solution to this issue. An ever-growing body of research shows that the use of warm water can have a numbing effect on muscle pain and DOMS. Even better, not only can your Hydropool reduce pain caused by DOMS, it also has the potential to completely by-pass the issue altogether. When in warm water, your heart rate increases and our blood vessels widen, allowing a higher amount of blood to reach your fatigued muscles. In doing so, your body is able to quickly begin to repair those tiny micro tears that appear during exercise, reducing the risk of DOMS occurring.
Post Exercise Pain Contraindication: In some circumstances, hydrotherapy, including use of a hot tub is not recommended. Acute injuries and inflammation – where redness and heat are still present are not recommended for hydrotherapy treatment.
6 - Night Cramps
Leg cramps can occur at any time of day, however according to the NHS (2020), most experience them at night.
As with other instances of leg pain, leg cramps can be caused by a variety of factors, including spending long periods of time sedentary or overuse of the muscles. According to recent statistics around 1 in 3 of us suffer from leg cramps (Medical News Today, 2020).
Whilst leg cramps can occur at any point of the day, night cramps can be more disruptive and inconvenient and have a wider impact on your life. A poor sleep schedule can lead to an array of other issues, ranging from feeling grumpy the next morning to more long-term problems like insomnia, diabetes and even heart disease.
Your Hydropool Hot Tub can help you reduce the risk of suffering from night cramps, helping you get a good night sleep. When in warm water, your muscles receive a higher volume of blood and can fully relax, and as discussed this allows more oxygen and nutrients to reach and repair them significantly reducing the risk of night cramps.
In conclusion, one of the earliest jokes I remember hearing was at primary school, one kid asked another, “Who do you support?”. The other boy replied, “I support my legs, because they support me.” Now to an eight-year-old this was hilarious and it’s interesting that, although I remember the joke, I’ve long since forgotten the two kids’ names! Legs are like that aren’t they. They’ll stick with you for life. With a Hydropool Hot Tub you can show them the love they deserve.
I cannot stress enough the importance of seeking medical advice for any and all of the conditions we have discussed in this blog. Each of the claims are fully referenced and the sources are detailed below.
I hope that, in conjunction with medical advice and intervention, your Hydropool spa can help soothe your leg pain and improve the quality of your life.
To experience Hydropool Midlands’ Hot Tubs and Swim Spas for yourself, visit our showroom just off junction 25 of the M1 for Nottingham. Request a brochure or a home visit and you can find out more across the Hydropool Midlands website, or by calling 0800 144 8827.
Sources
Medical News Today (2020) Types and causes of leg pain [Internet] available from <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241968>
NHS (2020) Leg cramps [Internet] available from: <https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/leg-cramps/>
Mayo Clinic (2021) Leg Pain <https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/leg-pain/basics/causes/sym-20050784>
WebMD (2021) Joint Pain <https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/joint-pain>