7 Ways to Avoid Leg Pain While Driving (On Long Road Trips)

If you’ve ever driven on a long road trip, you’ve probably noticed that part of your body starts to ache. You may feel like you need to stop to stretch or legs. Perhaps the signs are more subtle, and you subconsciously shift around in your seat to get comfortable again.

Driving fatigue affects your ability to drive safely. It can shift your focus and distract you from the road. Even if you’re a younger person, you may experience occasional leg pain during or after a long drive. Here are some ways you can avoid leg pain and other symptoms of driving fatigue.

The following article contains general information and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice. If you have an underlying medical condition, ask your doctor for medical advice that is best suited to your specific needs.

What Causes Leg Pain While Driving?

If you experience strained muscles and leg pain while driving, don’t worry, this is not an early sign of aging! This can happen to anybody because you will be engaging your feet (especially the right foot) on the foot pedal for long periods of time with little to no movement. Since your knee is folded in a specific position for so long, it causes tension in the muscles surrounding the knee. Tension can eventually lead to pain down the leg, and even cause your leg to start falling asleep.

Your leg may also hurt if the seat is too far from the wheel and you have to stretch to reach the foot pedal and the steering wheel comfortably. Reaching for the steering wheel causes you to slouch and sit in an incorrect posture, which in turn puts pressure on your nerves through the lower back. Reaching for the foot pedal also puts undue pressure on your tendons and can cause pain.

Ways to Manage Leg Pain While Driving

While it may not sound like a serious issue, you do not want to be caught off guard by a shooting leg cramp when your foot is on the gas! Neither do you want to exert yourself so much while driving on a road trip that you cannot complete the rest of your trip. The following are some ideas that may help you avoid leg pain while you are driving.

1) Adjust Your Seating Position

Before you even start the car, take some time to adjust your seating position. Modern vehicles have countless possible seating, steering wheel, and mirror adjustments available to the driver.

Consider raising the seat height if you are a shorter driver, and lowering it if you are tall. Next, you can change the angle of the seat. Angling the seat upward may help hold you in place, but this could be uncomfortable if taken to the extreme. Angling the seat downward may put less pressure on your hamstrings, but could also make you feel like you are going to slide forward out of the seat.

Adjust your side mirrors outward so you can no longer see the sides of the vehicle without moving your body. Adjust your rearview mirror so you can see behind you without sitting up or slouching.

Lumbar support plays a big factor in the comfort of your seat as well. Adjust this to your personal preference. Some people like a lot of lumbar support, and others find it extremely uncomfortable.

Adjust your steering wheel so you can reach it while your back is touching the seat, no matter where you place your hands on the wheel. Leave the wheel close enough that you have a slight bend at the elbows with your hands at the 12:00 and 6:00 positions. 

2) Stretch Before or After a Long Drive

When you stretch, your muscles will be slightly more relaxed and have less chance of cramping up or feeling tense while you are driving. Stretching before a drive may be helpful for some drivers.

If there is any tension built up in the body, the stretching will loosen it up and prepare you for a long drive. The logic here is the same as when you warm up before exercising or going for a run. Stretching prepares your body in the same way before you settle into your car for a long drive.

Similarly, it may also help to stretch after the drive as well as there will certainly be tension built up in your knees, ankles and lower back from long hours of sitting and engaging the brakes and the gas pedal (also the clutch if you drive a manual transmission). Stretching after the drive will prevent you from being too tired to drive back.

3) Use a Wedge Cushion

A wedge cushion is a cushion you can wedge in between your hips and the seat. These cushions are very soft and take the shape of your form. But they also provide some much needed support to your hips so they don’t lock up during a long drive.

The nerves at your hips also go down to the legs and if they become tense you may feel some pain and discomfort while driving. The cushion prevents the nerves from compressing as much and keeps the blood circulation in your legs going.

4) Mesh Back Support

A mesh back support is simply a layer you can put between your spine and the seat’s backrest. When your back is supported, it will also relieve the pressure put on the nerves from long hours of sitting. If your spine is not supported or there is tension in your lower back, it will have a direct impact on your legs and driving fatigue.

You may have heard of things like sciatica pain, which begins in the lower back and runs along the sciatic nerve which begins in the spinal area, going to the buttocks and then descends to the limbs. While not all driving pain is sciatica (though those who suffer from this pain may be at risk of aggravating it while driving), the description of this pain will help you to see the correlation between your spine and your legs.

It is important to keep your lower back comfortable and avoid the compression of nerves in that region.

5) Take a Break

Taking frequent breaks during a long drive can give your muscles a chance to rest and recharge before things get out of hand. The moment you feel your muscles tightening, it’s not a bad idea to start looking for a rest stop.

If you have a long drive, it will feel even longer if you’re uncomfortable. Taking a few minutes to stop could make the drive more pleasant and pass the time more quickly.

Don’t push yourself. If you’ve been driving all day, consider stopping to find a hotel. You’ll probably feel refreshed the next morning after some quality sleep.

6) Correct Your Posture

As you grow older, even the slightest misalignment in your posture may cause pain in the back, neck, hip, legs, or elsewhere. The same could be said for driving posture.

While driving, it is of utmost importance to keep your back and shoulders straight. You should also keep your foot on the dead pedal. The dead pedal helps support your body, and allows you to brace yourself in the seat through the corners.

7) Use Cruise Control

Cruise control gives your right leg a nice break while you’re cruising down the highway at a constant speed. The more you use cruise control, the less you have to ask your one leg to hold the gas pedal steady. This can help save both your leg muscles and your concentration. 

Conclusion

Driving is a hugely exciting activity that can change your life for the better. You can become more independent, you can carry out your own tasks without relying on somebody else to drive you to places, and you also do not have to rely on public transport for longer distances.

A road trip can be one of the most memorable experiences when in the company of loved friends and family. However, the same road trip can also give your leg muscles a lot of grief if you do not give yourself enough rest and do not keep your position in check.

I hope the tips I have provided above help you enjoy long drives, as those are truly the better part of knowing how to drive. You can take in the scenery around you and you can cut through all the city traffic when you are on a highway.

But even more importantly, these tricks will help you be comfortable when you are stuck in bumper-to-bumper city traffic and have nowhere to escape!