Ask the Trainer: Bulging Veins

ISSA’s Patrick Gamboa on Bulging "Roadmap" Veins

Question:

"Can anybody tell me why some people have bulging veins when they work out and others have no visible changes in their veins at all? All the pro-bodybuilders have huge veins that are always visible. I know NO supplements claim to give you that 'roadmap' veiny look, but body builders long before NO products had huge veins. Long before NO-Xplode, Ronnie Coleman had huge veins as did Dave Draper and all the others, so I don’t believe it’s the product itself that gives people bulging veins. Do the bulging veins just come with years and years and years of serious lifting?"

Answer:

When exercise begins, the heart’s rate and strength of contraction increases and blood is quickly pumped into the arteries. As this is occurring, systolic blood pressure increases linearly with exercise intensity, rising to nearly 200 mmHg during high intensity aerobic exercise (and to more than 400 mmHg during weight lifting). Diastolic pressure, on the other hand, changes very little with aerobic exercise (although it rises during weight lifting).

Simultaneously, the internal diameters of veins and venules narrow in a process called venoconstriction, forcing the flow of blood forward to the heart and enhancing their ability to receive blood coming from the capillaries. Overall, this process helps decrease the pressure in the venules and veins to at most about five mmHg. Venous volume and pressure thereby decrease and are thus not the basis for the bulging.

Instead, the process occurring in the capillaries as a result of the rise in arterial blood pressure during exercise causes plasma fluid otherwise resting in these tiny tributaries to be forced out through the thin vessel walls and into compartments surrounding the muscles. This process, known as filtration, causes a swelling and hardening of the muscle that is noticed during exercise. As a result of this swelling, cutaneous veins are pushed toward the skin surface, flatten to some extent, and appear to bulge. Such veins are more visible in persons with less subcutaneous fat. This bulging is neither good nor bad but simply a result of normal physiological mechanisms that result from the rise in arterial blood pressure during exertion.

Patrick Gamboa, BS, MSS has been in the fitness industry for over thirteen years and is an industry leader, educator, writer, consultant, coach and trainer whose educational background includes Bachelors and Associates of Sciences degrees in Exercise Physiology and Biology respectively. He is an ISSA Master of Fitness Sciences, an ISSA Master of Sports Sciences and the Head Master Trainer for the ISSA. Mr. Gamboa currently serves as the Vice President of Education for the ISSA. He is also the Editor in Chief of the Associate Newsletter and the ProTrainer Online magazine. In addition to his responsibilities with the ISSA he is a Distance Education Training Council certified evaluator and a Regional Lead Testing Coordinator for the National Board of Fitness Examiners.