So, yeah...

The muscle on the front of my shin, tibialis anterior, it looks like from the chart on the wall at the gym - is huge. They obviously buldge out over my shins. I don't spend a lot of time checking out people's legs, so I'm not sure if this is normal! It looks out of proportion from the rest of my legs.

Did I overtrain that somehow? How would you overtrain that muscle? It doesn't hurt, it just looks weird to me.

Thoughts?

I'm starting to develop the same thing so I know what you are talking about. Unfortunately, I am just as puzzled.

I spend a lot of time working on my legs in comparison to other areas so I thought it was that I overtrained them as you said.

Val,
look at your starting weight! As if you need too... Your leg muscles are going to be incredinly well developed right off the start due to how much WEIGHT they were forced to carry around all the time....... Many people,a s they are losing weight, find that they are more " muscular" than they would have liked when they get closer to goal weight, simply for that reason. And you knoe, your legs muscles get worked everyday just from walking around...... i dont think you *did* anything to them...... And i cant tell you how to make them atrophy..... because its not like you can stop using your legs lol. Although i am curoius what an over developed shin muscle looks like.. im having a hard time visualizing

I think mkroyer might have hit the nail on the head. Us former obese folks built up a lot of leg muscle just from walking around and carrying all of that extra weight. If you strength train all the way down like we did then I think you keep a lot of it.

I honestly think that's why my legs are thicker than they might otherwise be.

FWIW, I'm not a muscular person (though I'm trying my damndest, as you may know ), but my tibialis anterior is also really well-developed. It first got that way in high school, when I was in marching band. We were supposed to strike on the heel and roll through to the toe at every step; it's a movement pattern I've not really been able to break since then when walking/running. My husband makes "ka-POW!" noises when I flex my foot up & make the muscle "pop." Anyway, I attribute mine to overzealous heel-striking...

Ah, good point about the prior obesity! I didn't think about that.

I run on incline, too. Wondering if that contributes? I tend to heel strike a bit when I do that. Also, I noticed it aching while driving today. My right leg is definitely more developed. I wonder if all the constant braking (living in Japan) was a factor.

All good thoughts! I'm glad I'm not alone . I asked my husband to look at it and he said "hrm... that doesn't look normal for a girl." Oh thanks honey... haha.

I never drove in Japan but I can't count on both my hands and feet the number of times I almost got run over by obachans who were too short to look over the steering wheel. Surprising that Korea has an even higher % of car accidents per capita...

Haha... Oh man the obachans on the road were awful!!! Stopping all the time, for no reason, running lights... argh! I was always terrified I'd hit someone and have no idea what to do. My Japanese is not good enough to deal with that kind of situation! I can't imagine anywhere else could be worse to drive! Anytime anyone complains about traffic, in the states, I just shake my head and laugh . My mother came to visit me and she said she feared for her life every time we went anywhere... haha. I am so amazed I left accident free.

For those of you without this largely developed, try walking on the outsides of your feet, you'll feel stress in this outer muscle. For those of us that natural walk this way (called 'excessive supination')and have our whole lives probably have this large muscle. When we try to correct this and walk with evenly distributed weight, we can feel stress on the inner side of our lower legs

Excessive supination is when the foot leans to the outside. Weight is distributed along the outside. Also known as underpronation, over supination reduces the body's natural shock absorbing capability.

We can correct these imbalances in our natural gait with orthotic devices.

I hope this helps!