Leg pain, any ideas?

In My Humble Opinion
1

You are not my doctor, I am not your patient, etc, etc, but Google has let me down, or rather, my Google skills are letting me down.

I’ve recently gotten back into exercise after a very sedentary winter. I’ve started with morning and evening walks around the local park. Last night we went for a much longer walk.

Didn’t go for a walk this morning, but during this evening’s walk I felt a lot of pain which I am assuming is some sort of tendon/muscle strain due to my legs being very out of shape!

I’ll describe it as best I can. On the outside of my leg, above my ankle. Each step I took caused pain, kinda shooting up from the ankle towards the knee, but only going about halfway up my lower leg. Now that I’m back home, my legs still feel a bit sore there, but no pain.

I’ve found lots of websites about leg pain but they seem to be about calf or shin pain and this is neither of those.

Anyone else experienced this/know what it is? I’m guessing that as I get fitter, it won’t be such a problem, but I’m wondering if there are some specific exercises I could do during the day at home that might help strengthen that area?

2

IANAD

To strengthen that area I step onto the firsty step of our staircase at home, I put just the toe and balls of my feet on the step - then I go up and down in sets of 25. After a while my calves burning but the exercise is the best one I know for that area, aside from rigorous hiking or walking that is. As for the pain, IANAD but it sounds like your muscles may have atrophied a bit over the winter and now they are growing back into their summer in-shape selves. Can a muscle atrophy in just a matter of months? Hopfully someone can answer that as well.

3

This always happened to me the first week of rugby practice in spring after a winter of conditioning in the gym. Those muscles stabilize your legs and help you maintain balance when you walk on uneven terrain. Balancing on one foot uses them nicely. Walking indoors all winter (on flat, even flooring) lets them weaken. Its good they hurt, it means they’re getting stronger again, which will help your balance in the long run. The pain should go away as you continue to walk.

4

Thanks for your replies, both. I’m going to try that stairs thing, cheers Phlosphr!