Excruciating leg pain the day after a jam session

Last night I had a really amazing jam session with my regular guitarist and a new bassist. We played for about 4 hours straight with no breaks because we were so in the zone. At one point during the night, the guitarist started screwing around with death metal riffs between songs, so I started jamming along to see if I could keep up. I actually did, but I had to do a blast beat due to my lack of a double bass drum pedal. It was fun. All was good.

Until I woke up this morning. My leg is ****ing destroyed. Everything from my ankle to my mid-thigh feels like it's being crushed under a pile of rocks. It feels like shin splints, but magnified to the extreme and all over my right leg. I can still walk, but I'm limping and I can't stay on my feet for more than about 20 minutes.

Anyone else ever experienced something like this from drumming? Not sure if I should go to a walk-in clinic or just wait it out. My health insurance sucks (I live in the US) and I'm low income, so going to the doc when it's not absolutely necessary could be a disastrous financial blunder. Tell me this is a common occurrence for relatively new drummers.

Pain is the bodies way of telling you....HEY... somethings wrong.I'm sorry,but this is a question that should NOT be asked on a drum forum.Even if there are medical professionals here,they will NOT attempt a diagnosis and suggest treatment over the internet,or without a hands on physical examination.If someone says that they are a doctor over the internet,and suggests a treatment........report them to the AMA.That is completely unprofessional.

If the pain presists,go see a doctor.I get that there are guys here who don't trust western medicine...and I get that,but you need to see someone with actual extended medical knowledge.Drugs,and surical procedures aside....get thee to a doctor.I get that your insurance sucks,but as far as a financial blunder,your pain MAY,be an indicator of a different,possibly larger problem.Im not trying to scare you,Just telling it like it is..

Steve B

Not normal or common. It could be many things. If it gets worse I would get to your regular doctor, or if you don't have one, the clinic.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Told me what I already knew, but you're right. If it gets worse I'm off to the doc. If he says it's drumming related, I'll post about it here as a word of caution to others.

How old are you? I have pain in my right leg I believe to be arthritis but I'm just over 50.. I had to change styles of music due to it from heavy hair band type rock with lots of double bass to more 70's British invasion type music. (good thing I like both types) No way I could play 4 hours with out my 15-20 minute breaks between sets. Taking 2-3 Advil before playing helps me.

4 hours is way too long to just jam. Just probably stress related, let it rest till the next jam. And be sensible about taking breaks, drumming is a very physical exercise in musical ability.

I find that sometimes my enthusiasm can mask the fact that I'm using my muscles in ways that I have never practiced and pushing them past their capacity.

You don't practice the death metal style, so your body was not prepared for it.

I try to always stretch before I sit down at the kit. Mostly leg stuff, but also some upper body.

I'm an older dude, just turned 53, been playing drums for about a year and a half, and I am told that I played for 4 hours with only one break at last year's block party. I say "told" because time went away for me. I was so in the zone that I sat down at the kit and looked up and the sun was going down, or so it seemed.

But we stuck to mid-tempo rock stuff, no blast beats or anything I hadn't shedded. I stuck with comfy money beats. Next day I was expecting to be in traction, but I felt fine. Even put the kit back together and played some more.

My uneducated guess is that it's just muscle pain, maybe a pull, some cramping. Aspirin/Tylenol/Advil and BenGay will help you survive while your body is healing. Potassium supplements or just bananas can help with leg cramps.

But of course if you have no improvement in 48 hours, get thee to a professional.

Thanks again for all the input, guys. I took some prescription pain killers an hour or so after I created this thread. The pain ebbed off pretty quickly and was completely gone this morning, so I'm going to mark this one down as an isolated incident. I played really hard, didn't warm up or stretch properly, and I paid for it. Haha. Also, the weather went from 65 degrees and dry on the day of the jam to 34 degrees and raining the next day. They say that bone and joint inflammation is made worse by sudden temperature and barometric pressure changes, so I figure between that and the heavy playing, it was just a perfect storm. I'll definitely pay attention to how that leg feels now, though. Phew.