“Doctor, I have varicose veins in my legs, can I exercise or not?” This is a question that is often asked in clinical work. Let us first understand how varicose veins occur? Due to gravity, water always flows to the lower part of the body. And in the human body, blood from the lower extremities flows back to the heart through the veins against gravity, with the help of venous valves and calf muscles. Simply put, the calf is a pressure pump: when the muscles contract, the resulting high pressure drives venous blood back toward the heart; and the venous valves act as a valve to ensure that the blood flow is unidirectional from bottom to top. Then, if the venous valves are damaged due to various reasons, the venous blood in the lower limbs will backflow and produce varicose veins. When the human body exercises, such as jogging, brisk walking, swimming, and appropriate ball games, the contraction of the calf muscles facilitates the reflux of the veins in the lower extremities and reduces the symptoms of varicose veins. Of course, not any exercise is good – such as the popular weight-bearing muscle training in recent years, it is not suitable for people who already suffer from varicose veins – weight-bearing, due to the increased abdominal pressure, aggravates the burden on the valves of the veins in the lower limbs, accelerates the valve rupture ring , which may aggravate varicose veins. Therefore, jogging, brisk walking, swimming, and appropriate ball games are good for preventing varicose veins and relieving the symptoms brought about by varicose veins, while weight-bearing training rather accelerates the occurrence of varicose veins. Of course, if valve destruction and varicose veins in the lower limbs have already occurred, they cannot be reversed, and you need to turn to a professional vascular surgeon to relieve the disease through surgery.