Shin splints are the bane of a runner’s life. The pain in the legs and shins can make it difficult to train and perform well, causing pain that can last for weeks. Shin splints are a common problem for runners. Let’s take a look at how to prevent them.
What are Shin Splints?
Shin splints are typically experienced as acute pain in the front of your lower leg, close to the shin bone. There is often a small amount of swelling in the area where they occur. But what are they really, and what causes them?
Shin splints is the common name for medial tibial stress syndrome, a condition caused by inflammation of the muscles, tendons, and bone tissue along the shins.
The area becomes inflamed due to stress from overwork and/or repetitive activity in the legs and feet. Shin splints commonly affect athletes, dancers, and military recruits, and are typically more painful on the side of your dominant hand. For example, right-handed people typically experience shin splints on their right leg, and vice-versa for left-handed people.
Injuries most often occur when there is a sudden change in your activity levels.
Shin splints may be caused by:
- Overwork and stress on feet and legs
- Having flat or inflexible feet
- Overpronating the feet
- Exercising with incorrect footwear
- Tendonitis
Do You Have Shin Splints, or Something Else?
If you’re experiencing persistent pain in your shin that doesn’t go away with rest, it could be a sign of a stress fracture. Be sure to visit a doctor for diagnosis and treatment. If you don’t take care of your shin splints, they might turn into stress fractures, so it’s important to do something about the pain you’re feeling in your shins.
If you experience pain on the outside of your lower leg that is severe and sudden, you may have compartment syndrome. This condition needs to be diagnosed and treated by a doctor.
How to Prevent Shin Splints when Running
1. Know Your Feet
Do you have high arches or low? Are your feet wide or narrow? If you know what type of feet you have, you can pick the right shoes and improve your running form. Here’s a quick way to look at your foot arches at home:
- Place a piece of cardboard or thick paper on the floor
- Dip your foot in water
- Step on the cardboard and look at your footprint
If you can see the full outline of your heel and the ball of your foot when looking at your footprints, and the width of your footprints is about half the width of your feet, then you have a normal arch.
. If you see a deep indentation in the middle of your foot, with a very narrow print connecting them toward the outside of your foot, you have a high arch.
Footprints without a well-defined arch are generally thought to belong to people with flat feet.
2. Know Your Stride
Do you pronate or do you supinate? A normal person’s stride rolls from heel to toe smoothly, with the weight shifting from outside the heel, inward toward the large pad beneath the big toe.
If you keep your weight further to the outside or the inside of your foot when you stride, it places additional strain on the small, stabilizing muscles in your ankles, calves, and knees. This may lead to stress and injury. Here’s a quick way to evaluate your stride yourself:
Look at the bottom of an old, worn-out pair of shoes and notice where thesole is most worn away.
- If the soles of your shoes are most worn in the center of the heel and underneath the toes, you have a normal stride
- If the soles of your shoes are worn down on the inside of the heels and toes, you have a pronated stride, occurring in about 45% of people
- If the soles of your shoes are worn on the outside edge, then you have a supinated stride, which occurs in about 10% of people
Most pronation variances cause no problems and do not need to be corrected. However, if you are an endurance runner and spend a lot of time on your feet, it is important to take these variances into account when choosing shoes to prevent strain.
3. Choose the Right Shoes
The most important piece of equipment for runners are their shoes. Having the right shoes can help prevent shin splints. Knowing your arch and your stride will help you choose the right shoes, and running shoes that prevent shin splints need to:
- Fit perfectly
- Provide the right support for your feet, particularly in the arch
- Provide excellent impact protection and stability in the heel
4. Have Two (or more) Pairs of Shoes
Some runners become so accustomed to the fit and feel of their favorite shoes that they fail to realize that the shoes have worn down and are no longer providing adequate foot protection. The shoes lose their shock-absorbing ability, which puts more stress on your shins Wearing old running shoes is a common cause of shin splints. This is because the shoes lose their shock-absorbing ability, which puts more stress on your shins.
Alternating between two pairs of shoes will prevent them from developing odor and will help them last longer. It protects your feet by keeping your shoes in good condition.
Some runners train by alternating different styles or brands of shoes. This is because different shoes work the feet in slightly different ways. You can cross-train your feet by simply alternating between two types of shoes.
5. Stretch Before Running
You should never run without stretching first. Stretch before and after your run to avoid shin splints and other running injuries. Keeping the calf muscles stretched is especially important for preventing shin splints. Here are some stretches that can help warm up your muscles and prevent shin splints.
6. Alternate the Stress
If you are running on a road or track that has a slant, make sure to run back and forth on the same side of the road, or switch directions on the track halfway through your run, so that each leg is equally worked out during the entire run.
HOW TO TREAT SHIN SPLINTS
If you are in the painful phase of shin splints, the next sections will be helpful.
PAIN RELIEF FOR SHIN SPLINTS
Most people who visit me do so because they are in pain. Pain is often viewed as the problem. It isn’t. Pain is a symptom of the problem. Your pain system is very complex and has evolved over millions of years through natural selection. It is essentially your alarm system.
The purpose of this is to protect you and let you know when something is wrong. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but it’s supposed to be uncomfortable so that you pay attention to it!
Pain is your friend.
Dealing with pain is important, no-one wants to be in pain, it’s not a nice sensation at all and, to be fair, once we’ve worked out what the problem is and how to address it, the sensation becomes less helpful, so turning it down a bit is one of the early goals of physiotherapy.
We need to find the root cause of the pain, otherwise it will just keep coming back.
Although it may make the noise more tolerable, it does nothing to resolve the issue of the intruder in your house.
ICE & COLD THERAPY
Rubbing ice on your shins can help relieve pain from shin splints. The current research suggests that crushed ice is more effective. If you need to, ice for 10 minutes every 2 hours, using a damp towel to prevent ice burns.
Decrease the load on the sensitive area. If you keep stressing an area that is already stressed, it will prevent healing or de-sensitization.
MEDICATION FOR SHIN SPLINTS PAIN
Pain medications can help relieve the pain of shin splints. You should always speak to your GP or pharmacist before taking any medication.
RUNNING TECHNIQUE FOR SHIN SPLINTS
The purpose of running technique coaching is to examine someone’s running style and determine if minor changes to their biomechanics can help relieve shin splint pain while not negatively affecting their performance or increasing the risk of another injury.
We are trying to reduce the curvature of the tibia in the case of shin splints.
Here are some of the things I like to try when I’m running with this condition. What works for one patient may not work for another.
If you want the cue to work, you should feel less pain in your shin splints within 30-60 seconds of using it.
You should not continue to run if you do not start to feel better within a reasonable amount of time.
If you are having trouble with any of the below cues, you may want to seek out the advice of a physiotherapist or other health care practitioner who specializes in running injuries.
INCREASE RUNNING CADENCE FOR SHIN SPLINTS
One of the cues that I use most often when I am coaching runners is to get them to focus on their form. To get the most accurate tempo, it is best to use a digital metronome.
There are a lot of metronome apps that are free if you have an iPhone. You can also buy a digital metronome for a low price on Amazon.
There is no specific stride rate that you should aim for; you can experiment to see what works best for you. I usually increase your cadence by 5%-10% and see what the result is. You can increase the amount gradually and see how it goes.
The idea of increasing your cadence is to improve your form by keeping your strides shorter and landing closer to your center of mass. This will help your tibia stay straight instead of flicking out ahead of your knee.
The pole that a pole vaulter uses is like the support that your spine provides. They plant the pole in front of them as they approach the jump, which gives them a lot of power to vault, but makes it more likely that they’ll hurt their shins.
When a pole vaulter places the pole down, they should imagine it going down vertically instead of ahead of them. This will create less force on the painful area and make for a better pole vaulter.
INCREASE STEP WIDTH FOR SHIN SPLINTS
The goal is to transfer the weight to the outside of the shin, to reduce the inward curvature of the lower leg. I try to change this by using different cues. Asking people to space their legs out a bit or imagine running on either side of a yellow parking line usually produces the desired results.
Recently, I have had my runners tie a resistance loop just above their knees and instruct them to keep the pressure on the band. This method has been working well.
INCREASE ANKLE STIFFNESS
The goal is to reduce the amount of movement the ankle makes when it points upward. This means that the tibia will not bow as much when the soleus muscle tries to slow it down at the end of its range of motion.
Tensioning the ankle muscles also helps them to work reactively and elasticity. This means that it is not only good for running quickly, but it can also handle the impact of running without putting too much strain on the bones.
One way to increase ankle stiffness is to use a skipping rope. Jumping rope is a great way to train your ankles to be stiff.
Use this treatment sparingly as you recover from shin splints. Here’s what you need to know to get started with this workout routine: aim for 5 rounds of 20 seconds each, three times per week.
Conclusion
The pain from shin splints can be severe and the inflammation can take weeks to resolve. The best way to avoid injuries is to follow the steps above and make sure you are running safely and taking care of your body. Luckily, you can easily avoid shin splints by being a little more cautious. To avoid injury and enjoy running for a long time, make sure to wear the right gear, stretch beforehand, and gradually build up intensity. Also, take care of your legs.
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