A bit of muscle soreness following exercise is normal and results from pushing yourself beyond your normal levels during a workout. Typical muscle pain results from small tears that occur in muscle tissue during exercise.

As an essential mineral, potassium helps your body's many processes run smoothly. Potassium allows your muscles to function properly so that you can walk, run and otherwise go about your day. Without enough potassium -- a condition called hypokalemia -- cells throughout your body suffer.

Pain is a signal from the body that something is wrong. To best treat pain, it is important to have the cause properly diagnosed. Sharp pain that occurs in the front of the thigh can be caused by muscular tightness or injuries, damage to tendons, ligaments or cartilage, and problems within the nerves.

The quadriceps femoris, or quad muscle, is located at the front of the thigh and is responsible for straightening the leg from a bent position. As indicated by its name, it is actually composed of four muscles: the rectus femoris, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis and vastus intermedialis.

The deadlift is a key strength-training move that builds muscle mass fast. Deadlifts involve lifting a barbell, dumbbells or kettlebells off the floor from a bending position, which engages multiple muscles all the way from the lower legs to the shoulders.

Boils, also called furuncles, can be painful and debilitating — especially if they develop on areas such as your buttocks and thighs. They can appear as a single bump or cluster together to form carbuncles.To properly treat and prevent boils, it is important to understand how and why they occur.

The peroneal muscles lay along the outside of the lower leg. Their tendons travel behind the lateral malleolus, or ankle bone, to insert onto the foot and help with the actions of plantar flexion, or toe pointing, and foot eversion, or turning the sole of the foot outward.