Help me identify his leg vein

[Firefox]

Well as the title suggests, I have a vein in my leg that has gone from noticeable to just large, especially when working out. I never used to lift my legs much especially after pulling my hamstring and hip flexer in wrestling season but I've started to get into squats, deadlifts, and other similar lifts again within the past few months and feel as though my legs have gotten much stronger. With that, this vein has just gotten bigger and bigger seemingly every week. I've had friends point it out as it will "pop" even when I'm not doing anything physical like sitting in class.

That being said my questions are:

1. What exactly is this vein?

2. Why does it "pop" when I am just sitting around at times and others it is next to invisible?

3. How exactly did I end up with this? Is it just genetics or is it because my legs are getting stronger?

I am not a bodybuilder by any regard and my concept of lifting and staying healthy is take a pre workout, lift and run hard, and eat clean. I know next to nothing about this subject so I appreciate insight anyone on these boards can give me. Just curious as to what this is.

This is a picture I took when it "popped" just sitting on my couch doing homework. No workout, no activity, just doing classwork. Other times it is completely invisible unless I'm doing something physical, but when I am, it is much more pronounced than this and there are other "auxiliary veins" in addition to the ones shown for lack of a better term branching off the big one. The big vein then protrudes further down my leg and branches off in kind of a fork around my knee cap (when I'm lifting).



Thanks again for any insight you guys can give me I'm interested to see what someone who knows that they are talking about has to say.

[panzerr]

Great Saphenous

[panzerr]

Chances are you are partially occuding the vein when you sit causing it to back up similar to when someone puts a tournequit on your arm for a blood draw and your arm veins pop. When sitting your thigh is flexed and something is putting pressure on the vein -possibly your Psoas.

[lethal dose]

Sit with your leg stretched out. Does it still "pop"?

[Rharp]

I don't think that's the Greater Saphenous. That should run in the inter thigh. I think this is the Anterolateral branch. I agree otherwise.

[panzerr]

I don't think that's the Greater Saphenous. That should run in the inter thigh. I think this is the Anterolateral branch. I agree otherwise.

It looks medial enough to me to be the Great Saphenous, not to mention the size. The adductors make it look less so in the seated position as in the picture. I can hallucinate it in the proper place, but I see what you are driving at.

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

My brothers whole body looks like that, I think your just blessed with low body fat.

[FlyingHunter]

It is the superficial great saphenous.

In your legs, there are 3 types of veins; superficial, perforating, and deep veins. Think of the perforating veins as connecting the superficial veins to the deep veins. If you are standing, superficial veins run vertically, just beneath the surface of the skin and are often times visible to the naked eye. Superficial veins are responsible for transporting as little as 10% of the blood in the legs. The 10% of blood carried in the superficial veins flow directly into the perforating veins. The perforating veins run perpendicular to superficial veins and again, their function is to connect the superficial veins to the deep veins. Deep veins are located deep within the muscle of your leg and run parallel to superficial veins. Deep veins are responsible for transporting as much as 90% of the blood in your legs back to your heart.

It swells and diminishes based on load volumes, body position (sitting and/or weight bearing) and it's internal valve efficiency.

If you do not have symptoms such as pain, numbness, weakness, syncope (fainting) and have no cardiovascular history, no family history of cardiovascular, PVD issues, and are under 40...

keep hitting the gym and don't worry about it...and carry on.

[Firefox]

Thank you all for your help I greatly appreciate it. It looks like the common response on here is the superficial/great saphenous. I think it's interesting that they are only responsible for 10% of the blood flow to my legs I assumed it'd be much more than that for how noticeable that vein is. I also did not know the simple positioning of my body would constrict blood flow to that vein which explains the sudden popping.

To answer some questions, yes the vein still pops when the leg is extended the picture at the bottom of this post is one where my leg is extended.

I am currently a 19 year old male that is constantly physically active and have no medical conditions or history so it looks like I'll be in the gym as soon as this cold blows over .