The Benefits of Elevating Your Legs While Exercising

When most people work out, they’re on their feet – or at least upright. But you might be surprised to know that elevating your legs during a workout has numerous health benefits. Here are a few reasons why elevating your legs while you exercise can be a valuable part of your cardio and weight loss routine.

Improves Blood Flow in the Lower Body

All day long, your veins work at returning oxygen-depleted blood to your heart. Because the pressure in your veins is lower than the pressure in your arteries around your heart, while you’re standing, the process of returning oxygen-depleted blood to your heart is working against gravity. When your legs are elevated, blood flow is now working along with gravity, making the whole process easier. This can help improve blood flow in your legs without any drastic action on your part.

Reduces Swelling

This is an important one for people suffering from edema or high inflammation. Just like elevating your legs uses gravity to improve blood flow, it can also help drain excess fluid away from your legs, thus reducing swelling.

Eases Pressure on the Legs

Most people don’t realize how much time they spend sitting or standing throughout their day. This can lead to blood pooling in the veins of your legs. This increases pressure on those veins, which can lead to developing varicose veins over time. Elevating your legs while you exercise can help lower that pressure, allowing blood that’s pooled to drain away.

Eases Tired Feet

Everyone knows how great it feels to put your feet up and relax after a long day on your feet. Most people also know how relaxing and invigorating an intense cardio workout can be. By doing both at the same time, your body’s doing double-duty for you, giving you a boost of energy to sustain the rest of your day while easing pain in your feet.

Relieves Muscle Tension

Everyone suffers from muscle tension from time to time. It can be caused by physical exhaustion, slumped posture, sitting at a desk all day, or high-impact exercise. All of these put pressure on your muscles and can cause sore, aching, or swollen muscles. Elevating your legs during a workout can help prevent and relieve this, allowing you to do the activities your day requires without extra down time for recovery.

Not everyone has time to take long breaks during the day to elevate their legs. That’s why elevating your legs during a workout can be so beneficial. It combines two healthful activities (vigorous cardio and elevating your legs) in one session, so you can get the cardio your body needs and the rest your legs need.

If you’re a person who spends a lot of time sitting at a desk, or if you often experience discomfort in your legs or feet, working out with your legs elevated can help. Check out the Crunch Cycle for an easy, affordable way to get an intense workout at home.

Blog Author: Quinn Meadows