Anyone deal with shin splints?

[ditsy911]

I get shin splints very badly and very easily every time I run. I want to start running again to stay lean. I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to have to focus on shaping my body. It sucks because I really love running but I simply can't because of my shin splints...if I wanted to join a track team I'd be screwed. I didn't have this problem back when I ran cross country in middle school and high school.

Anyone deal with consistent shin splints like this?

[skinnykid00]

Hey! shin-splints are never fun to have...

I had them about 3 years ago during track season, and this season I'm starting to get them again.*

Shin splints are caused mainly by not stretching enough in your legs...your calf muscles start stretching the ligaments that connect the muscle to your shin bone; in extreme cases, your bone can literally splinter because of this tension.*


Here's some ways to deal with them.*

CALF-exercises

Sit down on the floor with you legs out in front of you. Point your toes forward as far as they can go, hold for like 10 secs. Then pull them back towards you and hold for 10. Repeat this 20x and then ice your calves/shins.*

Also you can lie on your bed and hook your feet over the edge and pull your legs towards you.*

You can also do calf raises / reverse raises on stair steps.*

Also STRETCH!!! Look up different leg stretches and do this after your workout and before you go to bed.*

Right now, a good thing for you to do to stay in shape until you can run on your legs is riding a bike or swimming.*

Shin splints are caused by your calves being too tight; by strengthening them and stretching them well you can relieve this tension and be back to running in no time!*

[deuce24]

I had them for quite a while. I finally had to stop running completely for a couple months and when I started again I eased into it

[jhonkame]

I get shin splints very badly and very easily every time I run. I want to start running again to stay lean. I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to have to focus on shaping my body. It sucks because I really love running but I simply can't because of my shin splints...if I wanted to join a track team I'd be screwed. I didn't have this problem back when I ran cross country in middle school and high school.

Anyone deal with consistent shin splints like this?

i get most of my pain in the shins, knee, and ankle, and back of the knee. I don't know how to prevent the pain.

[patrick4588]

i have unbearable shin splints, to the point its hard to walk sometimes. I take a couple weeks off from basketball and they go away but come right back once i play one time. i ice them, it helps minimally. i need to do calf raises and more stretching for sure

[SWOLERTHANYOU]

Within the first 48 hours of the pain, you need to ice 10 min on, 20 minutes off. Do this 4-5 times. After 48 hours, apply heat for 10 minutes, then massage it yourself for 5 minutes, then heat again for 10 minutes and massage again. Do this 2-3 times a day for 4-5 days and your shin splints should be gone. I had tons of problems with my shins as well until I started doing this. Hope it helps

[1211]

i have unbearable shin splints, to the point its hard to walk sometimes. I take a couple weeks off from basketball and they go away but come right back once i play one time. i ice them, it helps minimally. i need to do calf raises and more stretching for sure

Man, go get an MRI you prob have a stress #. pain outside of exercise particularly walking or in bed is a tell tale sign of a stress fracture.

calf stretching is great as is strengthening, you shouldsee a podiatrist to get some wedging in your shoes, most research points to the tibia bending caused by a 'running limb varus' (look it up),a wedge will take care of this.

if they are new reduce intensity/workload by 25%, if still no good 50%, then 75%. ice it lots and hope for the best.

with overuse injuries you need to enable your body to adapt to the physical demands of your sport,the reason you have the injury is because your body has not had a chance to adapt. slow down let it recover and then build it up slowly.

all the best!

[NewlyImproved]

Shin splints are probably the most common problem with begginer or re-introduced runners. A few facts, steps to aleviate, and quick tips.

1. Get in the right pair of shoes. If you have to get fitted at a store once, it's worth it. If your not up for that use the average home test and buy them cheap online. Flat Feet- Motion Control shoe, Moderate Arch- Stability Shoe, high Arch- Neautral shoe

2. Focus on less heel to toe running and more of a midfoot strike. This is easier to achieve by shortening up your stride length(not overstriding) and increasing your cadence( ideally 175-180 step per minute). Most people heel strike. If you jump off a ledge are you going to land on the balls of your feet or the heel? The heel would hurt like **** and shock the hell out of your body.

3. Ice massage twice a day, you've dug a hole, now dig yourself out.

4. Try pulling up on a weight or table sets of 10, that will strengthen your shin muscle.

5. Compression socks or calf guards: they won't heal it by any means, but they will make running more bearable.

6. In my profile picture look at the guy running behind me, notice how he is going to strike on his midfoot, credit he is running at probably 4:50 a mile in that picture, but it doesn't look much different when he cools down for a workout.

7. Once again look at me in my picture, all my weight is focused under my body, not out in front of it like a heel strikers. Focus on the extension backwards, not forwards.

It's a learning process, but one well worth it! A great teaching tool is running barefoot on soft grass if you have access.

Any more>?

[john3710]

when i was in HS, my cross country coach told us to pretend we were doing a double bass kick on a drum set while sitting down.... keep heel's on teh ground and lift front of right foot then while lowering right, lift left... start slow then gradually speed up.... this strengthens shins.... make sure after doing this for a while to point toes to stretch muscles back down and get blood flowing back into shins.... I never had shin splints again after doing this for a while!

[darksidesunny]

ditsy911-

I suffered pretty bad from shin splints back in December 2009. This was during a time that I was trying to lose weight and running was important to that. But, when it got so bad that sometimes it hurt to walk normally, I had to stop. I didn't want to risk a stress fracture. I now am able to train for a marathon and run about 30 miles a week. What did I do? I rested my legs for about a month. No running. lots of icing my legs. I invested in compression sleeves for my calf/shins. When I started running again, I GRADUALLY worked my distance and speed back up. I increased my distance by only 10% each week. I worked on incline/hill training a lot also for more variety (to reduce injury). Take care of yourself. You may regret it later if you don't! Also, I never stretch my calves and I never have shin problems anymore. Maybe I'm just one of those fortune people that only actually gets injured when they stretch and not vice versa. Hopefully you will find something to work for you.

-Naomi

I get shin splints very badly and very easily every time I run. I want to start running again to stay lean. I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to have to focus on shaping my body. It sucks because I really love running but I simply can't because of my shin splints...if I wanted to join a track team I'd be screwed. I didn't have this problem back when I ran cross country in middle school and high school.

Anyone deal with consistent shin splints like this?

[BigBackWannabe]

dumb question

are shin splints mainly in front of the leg, what i normally would consider the "shin" or can they occur all around the lower leg like sides or behind at the calf?

I get pain a couple inches above the ankle, but on the inside of my legs, comes on while running, goes away mostly an hour or so after running.....That would be shin splints right? LOL

[SherpaRunr]

Shin splints are probably the most common problem with begginer or re-introduced runners. A few facts, steps to aleviate, and quick tips.

1. Get in the right pair of shoes. If you have to get fitted at a store once, it's worth it. If your not up for that use the average home test and buy them cheap online. Flat Feet- Motion Control shoe, Moderate Arch- Stability Shoe, high Arch- Neautral shoe

2. Focus on less heel to toe running and more of a midfoot strike. This is easier to achieve by shortening up your stride length(not overstriding) and increasing your cadence( ideally 175-180 step per minute). Most people heel strike. If you jump off a ledge are you going to land on the balls of your feet or the heel? The heel would hurt like **** and shock the hell out of your body.

3. Ice massage twice a day, you've dug a hole, now dig yourself out.

4. Try pulling up on a weight or table sets of 10, that will strengthen your shin muscle.

5. Compression socks or calf guards: they won't heal it by any means, but they will make running more bearable.

6. In my profile picture look at the guy running behind me, notice how he is going to strike on his midfoot, credit he is running at probably 4:50 a mile in that picture, but it doesn't look much different when he cools down for a workout.

7. Once again look at me in my picture, all my weight is focused under my body, not out in front of it like a heel strikers. Focus on the extension backwards, not forwards.

It's a learning process, but one well worth it! A great teaching tool is running barefoot on soft grass if you have access.

Any more>?

^This.

This vid helps explain the form issue:



I've had problems with shin splints and this seems to help.

[NewYorkGiants]

I had shin splints for a long time and they kept coming back over and over. There's only 2 things that ever helped me. I have tried many things including icing, stretching, massages, heating, hot baths every day, different kinds of special shoes, shin braces, none of that ever worked.

First you have to rest until they're healed, this can take weeks, but you just have to be patient. After that you have to slowly ease back into running, this is what worked for me:

1) Increasing the strength of the front muscles in my leg by keeping my heels on the ground and lifting the front of my foot in the air (as one user said above). This strengthens your shin muscles so they can bear the stress of your body weight when running.

2) The main thing is running on your toes and not on your heels. When you're trying to run faster, a lot of people tend to overstride and land on their heels. They think this will make faster because their steps are longer, but it ends up hurting them in the long run. Overstriding creates a "slap" of the front of your foot and strains the muscles in your shin. They continue to get stretched until they tear from the bone resulting in shin splints and eventually stress fractures.

What a lot of track coaches do is tell their students to focus on "silent running", or run as if you are trying to sneak up on someone. Land only on the balls of your feet, your heels barely ever need to hit the ground when you're sprinting. Your calves act like a spring and they absorb the blow of running rather than trying to put all that weight on your shins.

Since I learned how to run properly I haven't had shin splints at all, and this is after getting them every time I try to run for years and years.

[TSRBlog]

I had persistent shin splints for 2 years during HS - I tried personalised orthotics, various calf/tibial strengthening and stretching exercises - none of which yielded any long term relief (<- this is starting to sound like an infomercial...)

What worked for me in the end was correcting my anterior pelvic tilt - most people are in anterior tilt as a result of modern sedentary lifestyles (lots of sitting = short/tight hip flexors).

How it can affect shin splints is explained well here:

A pelvic tilt will most certainly cause the muscles of the lower limb to compensate. It’s not always easy to tell what caused what, but usually one will find an internally rotated femur accompanying a forward pelvic tilt. Simply put, this is when the knee starts to turn inward during standing, walking, squatting, etc.

At the calf, this causes the nervous system to preferentially recruit the gastrocnemius, plantaris, and popliteus over the soleus, which can lead to strain, adhesions, and even contribute to anterior compartment syndrome or “shin splints”.

How many people think of straightening out the pelvis to fix chronic shin splints? But who knows, maybe your doctor is right, it could just be an ibuprofen deficiency.

Also, barefoot running and shoes with minimal support (i.e. Puma Kosmos, Nike Frees, Vibram FiveFingers etc.) were superior to the podiatrist recommended sturdy sole arch support shoes for overpronators and shin splints in my case (less pain, improved running economy and strengthening of supporting lower musculature).

[NewlyImproved]

I had persistent shin splints for 2 years during HS - I tried personalised orthotics, various calf/tibial strengthening and stretching exercises - none of which yielded any long term relief (<- this is starting to sound like an infomercial...)

What worked for me in the end was correcting my anterior pelvic tilt - most people are in anterior tilt as a result of modern sedentary lifestyles (lots of sitting = short/tight hip flexors).

How it can affect shin splints is explained well here:



Also, barefoot running and shoes with minimal support (i.e. Puma Kosmos, Nike Frees, Vibram FiveFingers etc.) were superior to the podiatrist recommended sturdy sole arch support shoes for overpronators and shin splints in my case (less pain, improved running economy and strengthening of supporting lower musculature).

Be careful in minimalist shoes. Yes, they are a great tool. Everyday runner? Depends on to many variables to count when pressed for time. I've seen more people hurt, than succeed in them> Manage a popular running store in the summers.

[1211]

http://www.podiatry-arena.com/podiat...highlight=mtss ---> read this link, read only don't post on this forum.

Its your tibia bending due to the angle your leg is on when it hits the ground...this has little to do with 'pronation' and more to do with the narrowing base of gait whichcomes with running.