Are Big Veins a Sign of Fitness?
This unbelievable photo of a Tour de France rider's prominent veins will have you wondering if you should be creating your own vascular network.
This unbelievable photo of a Tour de France rider’s prominent veins will have you wondering if you should be creating your own vascular network. – By Selene Yeager
“High level cyclists also have double the blood flow to their legs compared to recreational exercisers,” he explains. So while you may have about 20 litres a minute coursing through your pistons as you ride, a pro like Poljanski pumps 40 litres a minute through his pedal pushing muscles. “That contributes to bulging prominent veins,” says Mukherjee.
And if those metabolic changes don’t pump you up enough, blood pressure increases during exercise can force plasma fluid out of your thin vessel walls and into compartments surrounding your muscles. This process, known as filtration, causes swelling and hardening of the muscle, which nudges all those bulging veins even further to the skin’s surface.
Should you aim to create your own vascular network to share on your social network? Not necessarily. Prominent veins in and of themselves are not particularly beneficial, and like diamond carved calves and second knee cap quads, not every rider is genetically wired to achieve the same aesthetic. But a few more veins rising to the surface is definitely an indicator of improving fitness, says Mukherjee.
“Since it reflects lower subcutaneous fat and higher blood volume, the harder a cyclist trains the more prominent the veins will become,” he says. “It is something that may tell an athlete that he/she is getting to a higher level of performance.”
READ MORE ON: Skills strength training programmes workouts