The picture posted by cyclist Pawel Poljanski on Instagram yesterday showed his legs, with veins bulging, after the 16th stage of the Tour de France.
The Bora-Hansgrohe rider wrote: “After 16 stages I think my legs look little tired.” But although the image looks an extreme example, this is exactly what happens in all of us after exercise in warm conditions. You just can’t see it because most of us have much more body fat than Poljanski.
We all have a similar superficial system of veins — albeit perhaps not quite as large — returning deoxygenated blood back from the leg muscles, and dissipating heat generated during exercise. They are far more prominent in Poljanski because, like most athletes, he is lean and doesn’t have so much superficial fat “bulking out’ the layers under his skin.
This venodilation is not so noticeable during a stage as much of the blood returning to the heart from the legs is pumped through the larger deep veins by the action of the calf and thigh muscles contracting and relaxing as the cyclist pedals (veins have valves to ensure one-way flow back to the trunk of the body).
However, once the stage finishes and the leg muscles stop pumping, blood flow diverts to the veins under the skin and you get this weird appearance.
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The closest most of us will get to this are changes in the back of the hand and forearm after exercise where veins tends to be naturally more prominent even in non athletes.
Varicose veins — where the valves fail and the vessels swell and become painful — look very different and tend to be most prominent on standing, irrespective of whether you have exercised or not.
