Why Your Leg STILL Feels Heavy After Stroke

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]If you've ever been frustrated with [music] your leg feeling like it's getting heavier even though you feel like you're progressing, then this video is for you. Because in today's video, we are going to go over why your leg feels [music] stiffer and heavier the further you get into recovery and simple things that you can start doing today to hopefully smooth out your walking, but more importantly make you feel like your leg is getting lighter and not heavier.

[00:00:32]>> [music] >> If you're new to this channel, I'm Tara.

[00:00:36]I'm a neurologic physical therapist with over 20 years of experience helping people restore their mobility and their independence after a neurologic injury.

[00:00:42]And my mission for this channel is to empower anyone that's recovering from a neurologic injury with all the tools necessary to take full ownership of your recovery and achieve massive success long after most of you have been discharged from your physical therapy.

[00:01:00]And all that said, today we're going to cover a very common topic that comes up in the comments, and that is, why does my leg feel so heavy or stiff or feel like it's stuck to the ground? No, you're not imagining things. This is probably the number one barrier that I see for most people that has the greatest impact on your walking when you are recovering from a neurologic injury.

[00:01:23]And no, it's not that your leg is getting weaker and really has nothing to do with strength at all. It is a signal problem. what I call sometimes kind of like a little glitch in your hardware that occurs when your brain recovers from a neurologic injury as an adult.

[00:01:42]And this little glitch that occurs has to do with two terms that if you've been around for a while, you've heard quite a bit, but if you're new to this channel, they might be new to you. And that is spasticity and abnormal synergy patterns. What is spasticity? I know I sound like a broken record, but I promise you, even if you've been around here for a while, the tips that I give at the end of this video are going to help you smooth out your walking. So, spasticity is an involuntary contraction, meaning that after a neurologic injury, muscles will contract involuntarily. The other thing are abnormal synergy patterns. What are abnormal synergy patterns? Abnormal synergy patterns are when muscles link up abnormally. So you don't just get movement at one joint, meaning you want to lift your leg up and bend your knee.

[00:02:34]You get movement at all of the joints at the same time. So when you go to lift your leg up, the knee will want to bend at the same time and the foot will want to flex up. That's what we call a flexor synergy pattern. All three of those movements at the hip, knee, and ankle cannot happen independently of each other. they happen all together. Then there's an extensor synergy pattern and that's when you want to extend your knee, which most of you want to do when you're standing on your involved leg, right? You want your knee to stay straight. Well, at the same time, your foot's going to point down. When your foot points down, sometimes it throws you backward, but more importantly, once your knee locks out and you get kind of stuck in this extensor synergy pattern, it is very hard to bend your leg. which is why in many cases it feels heavy or stuck to the ground. But both of these conditions are signal problems. They are not muscle problems. So stop going down the rabbit hole of finding the exercise that will help you lift your leg up, which is what most of you do. Or in my opinion, stop focusing on those clamshells or bridging. Although all of those exercises are great, they're all focusing on the muscle and not the signal.

[00:03:54][music] So let's start with the spasticity. Spasticity, involuntary muscle contraction. When this happens, and in my opinion, it's adaptive.

[00:04:04]Meaning that when you are walking, there's something in our brain that doesn't want us to fall. And it is so much better just to make the muscles contract than not having any muscle contraction at all. The problem is it creates stiffness or you get kind of like co-ontraction around the joints.

[00:04:22]Meaning you've got muscles contracting involuntarily on both sides of the joint and you've taken something that's kind of bendy or maybe even early on in your recovery was kind of limp kind of like a spaghetti noodle and you have locked it out. So, the best thing that I can think of that popped in my head recently, it's like those little like figurines that I'm probably dating myself now, but that some of us had growing up where it was like an animal or a Disney character and it was kind of on this base and if you I think if you pushed the button, it went from like a limp structure and there's like some kind of string that runs through it and everything like locks out straight. Great for taking that limp little figurine and getting him to stand up. And of course, we were all excited about that when we were little kids, but not ideal if you want to bend your legs fluidly to walk with a smooth walking pattern. And just like we got excited as kids when we saw that figurine go from kind of like dead to life, we get very excited or many of you got very excited when you first started to see that because it was a sign that things were waking up, things were moving. And absolutely, it was a good thing to get that initial movement because for many of you, it did allow you to stand up versus having to sit in a wheelchair.

[00:05:47]The downside is that signal doesn't just give a go a little bit, it goes a lot.

[00:05:54]And so you're getting too much signal.

[00:05:57]You're getting too much voltage going to those muscles. So for many of you, every time you stand up, you will see your fist clench up, your arm clench up, your leg lock out, or if you try and straighten your knee out, you'll see your foot like point down really, really hard. or if you go to stand on your leg, you get very excited because your knee doesn't buckle, but then you can't bend it to bring it through and it feels just super super heavy. Now, most of the time people don't just have spasticity, they have spasticity and abnormal synergy patterns. And I know you guys have heard this before, but it's always worth repeating. Abnormal synergy patterns for the most part is an extensor synergy pattern, which again is probably adaptive. When your knee needs to be straight, it's better just to lock it out straight and create like a peg leg so that your knee doesn't buckle and you don't fall. The problem is it gets stuck to the ground or feels super duper heavy when you try and bend it. And for a good visual, what you end up with is like that pirate with that peg leg just kind of like, yes, it's allowing him to walk, but it looks awkward and your leg is kind of out to the side and you're just kind of hobbling along and that leg isn't really supporting you. Although it's not buckling, it's not doing a great job of allowing you to have that smooth, rhythmic walking. And so now, what do you do about it? you stop strengthening. You have enough signal.

[00:07:32]You don't need more signal. You have too much signal going to those muscles in that leg that are making it feel heavy.

[00:07:43]What you need to focus on is lowering the volume on that signal. Great that you got the signal and you're getting a little bit of movement, but now we need to turn the volume down on it. And how do you do that? You start by laying down. Make sure you're in a relaxed position and work on bending the knee while giving yourself cues to inhibit.

[00:08:08]So, what is an inhibitory cue?

[00:08:12]Relax.

[00:08:13]Let the foot fall. Let the knee bend.

[00:08:17]Those are inhibitory cues. What is like an excitatory cue? Bend the knee. Bend the knee. Right? So you can really practice this while you're laying down.

[00:08:27]Notice I intuitively like lower my voice because this is actually what I do when I'm treating someone because that also matters. You want all the stimuli in the environment, you want to tone it down.

[00:08:40]You're trying to quiet the signal down.

[00:08:42]You're trying to quiet the system down.

[00:08:44]So some other things along those lines is make sure that you're not like in a busy crowded area when you're doing this. Try and find a quiet corner in your home. I love a mat table, a folding mat table. I will put a link for one in the description below. This exercise is hard to optimize in a busy therapy gym.

[00:09:08]I'm fortunate that I treat patients one-on-one and so I have a very quiet environment, but that's not the reality for pretty much anyone who's going to physical therapy. So, it's a great part of a home exercise program. laying on the mat, letting your hang off leg hang off the side and feeding your brain those inhibitory cues of just relax. Let the leg fall, let the knee fall. So, so, so important. And same thing when you take this to walking, which is so hard for so many of you because you don't want to catch your foot, right? And so everything in you says, "Lift the leg, lift the leg, lift the leg." Or maybe you know your leg is locked out straight and you want to bend your knee and you're like bend the knee, bend the knee. That's where you also the queueing what you're telling your brain is also so so so important is let right before you go to swing that leg through, let it relax. Let the knee bend. Another thing I often tell people is when you're standing on the leg, think about while you're still standing on the leg, getting the knee over the shoelaces before you even try and pick it up. As you're moving through that standing phase, try and just kind of move your knee slightly forward over your shoelaces before you pick your leg up, your other leg, your uninvolved leg, cuz that kind of sets you up for success cuz then you're going before you even go to lift the leg, the knee is already bent and then it's just allow it to come forward. Allow it, not force it, not lift it, allow it to come forward. And the other thing that's also really valuable for this activity is setting things up around you so you have like safety nets around you because that's also going to quiet your system down. So walk next to a counter, kind of have your hand hovering over the counter. If you need to touch the counter with your involve your uninvolved hand, that's okay. But your goal is to work towards not doing that so that you make sure there's no pressure through your hand and then move to like walking along next to a wall so that you can't really put downward pressure through the hand but you still have a safety net that can also help to quiet your system down. So I gave you one laying down drill you can do to work on inhibition. I gave you one kind of standing walking drill to work on inhibition. But the timing of when you practice this is also important.

[00:11:38]It's kind of counterproductive to do this. If you're highly stressed or you just got in a fight with someone or you are rushing to get somewhere, maybe you're trying to fit your therapy in.

[00:11:52]This would not those would not be the times to work on this activity specifically. Doesn't mean you don't do therapy at all that day, but set your expectations appropriately that your entire system is going to be in a little bit more of a heightened state and it's going to be a little bit harder to carry this out, carry out this activity.

[00:12:14]Hopefully you guys found this helpful.

[00:12:16]That is the tip. For some of you, it's review, but I can't stress it enough.

[00:12:21]The reason I keep kind of repeating myself on specific topics is because I continue to see people that do follow me on YouTube and I see them in person and I rarely see people that are applying this inhibitory component to their stroke or neuro recovery program.

[00:12:44]>> [music] >> If this video resonated with you and you are driven and you are ready to meet that next set of goals in your neurologic recovery and you want to do it in less time in a supportive environment and be coached every step of the way as you encounter certain barriers, which is going to happen, then you would be perfect for our membership program. To learn more about our membership program, you can visit rehabenhq.com.

[00:13:12]But if you're new to this channel and you liked this video and you want to see more videos like this, it really does help the channel out to hit that subscribe button. There's still about 30% of you that watch these videos that aren't subscribed. So, that's one way you can support this channel [music] and support the content that I'm putting out to help you and so many others that are dealing with neurologic injuries and maybe have limited therapy or your therapy has ended. It really does help the channel [music] if you hit that subscribe button, but even more importantly, it really does help that channel if you hit that like button. But that is it for this video. I enjoyed spending time with you all today and I'll see you in the next video. [music] Have a good day.

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