Jude Bellingham’s two goals on Saturday in England’s 2026 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal matchup against Norway were certainly not in vain. In fact, his scoring ended up being the difference maker in England’s Three Lions’ 2-1 win in extra time over Norway’s Landslaget to secure a place in the semifinals—only the fourth time the Three Lions have ever made it to the semis of a World Cup.
But before the game, something in vein—or rather in the veins of Bellingham’s legs—caught a lot of attention on social media. A photo of the 23-year-old star midfielder posted on Instagram showed lots of extremely prominent and bulging veins in Bellingham’s lower extremities, as you can see here:
Bellingham’s Leg Veins Looked Particularly Prominent
Now, it’s not uncommon for big time athletes to have a lot of big veins in their legs. After all, when you exercise and work out a lot, your body fat can decrease, your muscles can increase in size and so can the blood flow to and from your muscles as a result. All of these can increase the size and prominence of your veins, giving you a very vein appearance, so to speak.
But Bellingham’s veins in the Instagram photo seemed a little more Incredible Hulk-like or Manga character-like than simply athlete-like. So, you may ask, hey Jude, what’s happening with your legs? What’s causing all this?
Bellingham Was Wearing Blood Flow Restriction Shorts
Well, in short, it was his shorts. They looked quite tight in the photo. Not tight in an excellent, cool or awesome manner. But tight in a very restrictive manner.
This was deliberate and not a fashion or ordered-the-wrong-size-on-Amazon mistake. Bellingham was apparently wearing blood flow restriction shorts. Blood flow restriction shorts—or BFR shorts for short—basically do what their name implies. They can act like a tourniquet, compressing the veins around your hips, restricting the flow of blood from your lower extremities back to your heart. This can leave blood getting backed up and pooling in your leg veins. Hence, the bulging veins seen in Bellingham’s legs.
Bellingham’s BFR Shorts Were Part Of Team England’s BFR Training
Bellingham wasn’t simply wearing those shorts out of “veinty,” though. They were presumably part of Team England’s BFR training. Such training aims to put added stress on muscles during workouts to help the muscles get even stronger and bigger.
If you think about it, putting stress on muscles is what all sorts of muscle training attempt to do. Weightlifting, for example, is supposed to cause very small tears in your muscle fibers and your muscle cells to swell. This in turn triggers repair mechanisms that rebuild your muscle fibers and cells so that they are bigger and stronger.
A similar situation occurs when you work your muscles in various high intensity manners. When your muscles are working so hard that they demand more oxygen than is available through the blood flowing into the muscle via arteries, your muscles have to rely on anaerobic metabolism. It’s called anaerobic because it’s metabolism done without oxygen and breaks glucose down into lactate and hydrogen ions. This leads to the build up of lactic acid, which is what makes your muscles feel sore. The build-up of lactic acid also can trigger muscle repair mechanisms leading to the growth of the muscles as well.
With BFR training, restricting the flow of blood away from muscle might help all that tearing, swelling and lactic acid build-up occur sooner and faster during weightlifting or some other kind of workout. That, in turn, could increase the muscle building that occurs. It could also reduce the weights that you might have to lift and the intensity of the workouts needed to achieve the same results. This can be particularly helpful if you’ve got injuries that restrict what you can do.
Be Careful If You Want To Start BFR Training
Before you go BFR, as is the case with any workout, make sure that you don’t have any health conditions that may make such training approaches dangerous. For example, you may not want to restrict your blood flow in any way if you already have blood flow or blood clotting problems. Moreover, be careful about any equipment that you may use and how you use it. Different BFR bands and clothing are available such as bands that resemble blood pressure cuffs for different parts of your body. You want to make sure that such bands or clothing items are not so tight that they restrict the flow of blood through your arteries or get yourself injured in any way. Also, make sure that you don’t wear such things too long.
Bellingham Is Having A Strong World Cup
It’s not completely clear how much BFR may be helping Bellingham right now besides getting his legs more attention. Nevertheless, with six goals in six games, his play in the tournament has certainly stood out—kind of like his veins in the Instagram photo.