To determine whether your quadriceps sore or you pulled a muscle, causing more serious damage, discuss your symptoms with your doctor, who can help you get an accurate diagnosis and treatment. Weak or tight quadriceps may tear during sudden intense movements, such as lunges. Symptoms include pain and difficulty using your quadriceps muscles, which are located on your front thighs. Home treatment is not a replacement for medical care.
Lunging Risks
You have four quadriceps muscles, running from your hips to your knees, which work to support you during lunges. Correctly executed lunges also engage abdominal muscles, glutes and hamstrings, the muscles on the backs of your thighs. Imbalances between weak quads and other lunging muscles may lead to pulled muscles. Lunging too deeply in a sudden movement may also cause more stress than your quadriceps can handle without becoming damaged. Overuse, or practicing lunges when your quads are too tired, also leads to pulled quads.
Signs
A pulled muscle, also called a muscle strain, is a partial tear in small muscle fibers in your quadriceps. The small tears cause bleeding, inflammation and swelling on the front of your thigh. You may see bruising, and your thigh may appear larger or puffier than usual. Difficulty bending and straightening your knee joint is another sign of a pulled quad. At the time of injury, you may have heard a popping sound near your joint.
Symptoms
Symptoms of quad pulls include pain and tenderness in the front of your thigh. During the injury-causing lunge, you may have felt a popping or snapping sensation in your quads. Your quads may feel overly tired, stiff and weak after a muscle pull. When using your quadriceps muscles, your experience of pain and weakness may increase. Consult a doctor if you can't walk more than four steps without significant pain, can't move bend your knee, feel numbness or see redness or red streaks coming out of your injury.
Prognosis
Muscle pulls have varying degrees of damage and time necessary for recovery. The most serious quad strain results from a complete tear in the muscle and may require surgery and a recovery period of three months. A moderate level muscle strain involves partial muscle tearing and takes one to two months for recovery. The least severe muscle strain stretches muscle cells, causing microtears, but requires a shorter recovery period of 10 to 21 days.
References
- MayoClinic.com; Sprains and Strains; October 2009
- NYU Langone Medical Center; Quadriceps Strain; Laurie LaRusso, M.S., E.L.S.; 2011
- American Council on Exercise: Forward Lunge
- "Human Anatomy"; Elaine N. Marieb, Ph.D., R.N., et al.; 2011
