Tiny little bulges on legs when tensed up working out

I noticed I get these weird little bugles when I work out and tense my legs when I do leg exercises. The skin gets raised....its not a lump or cyst per say, but I don't know what they are. They disappear when I am not tensing my legs up working out, what could it be?

I hate being an alarmist, but it could be the start of varicose veins. I had them. Had them removed in one leg and lasered shut in the other.

No not varicose veins lol. It only happen when I lift heavy weights with my legs.....if it is, I better start prevention

My first guess would have been VV too. But it could be a properly functioning cutaneous vein thats just engorged with blood also. You don't see it as often as you see them on the arms of typical lifters, but its the same principle. When you have a region where the sub-c fat is low enough and you're experiencing enough blood flow, veins bulge, and especially in certain areas, they can kind of wrap up on themselves and look like little balls. But I'm just guessing here. Without pictures we can't know. The texture would help shed some light, whether its hard and palpable or kind of just soft and can be pushed out when pressure is applied.

Grotesque example:


Important to note though is that varicose veins can get confused with spider veins. Vericose veins aren't always noticeable by color under the skin. They can just look like a "ball of worms". The lifter's veins above could be mistaken for vericose veins in someone who was untrained.

Besides those things I would have no idea. The only other possible thing I could think of would be that you're seeing the actual heads or striations of a muscle. But that would take a pretty damn low body fat level and I'd expect you'd have to have been lifting for at least a little while (some degree of hypertrophy) before you'd start seeing that.

An example of those striations:

There is no vein and its not hard. I can push it back, but it will slightly pop back out when I am doing leg lifts of some sort. Haven't noticed any veins, but on that bottom picture of the guys leg on the right size....you see that little lump on the side of his leg? It looks like that.....

Hairbeback wrote:There is no vein and its not hard. I can push it back, but it will slightly pop back out when I am doing leg lifts of some sort. Haven't noticed any veins, but on that bottom picture of the guys leg on the right size....you see that little lump on the side of his leg? It looks like that.....

You're probably just seeing part of the belly of one of the extensor muscles of the foot. The major ones attach at the fibula right around that area. They are really small.