shin splints

Sunn

Took up playing footie again after a long break of a couple of years. I have been playing constantly every sunday for the past 3 months on a outdoor astro turf pitch.

A couple of weeks ago after playing both my shins were sore and the top of my foot where my foot meets my shin was also a bit painful. although the pain was in both legs its subsided on the right leg and is now more prominent in the left.

The pain is generally on the inside of the lower shin along with the bend on where the foot meets the shin, I usually walk everywhere but am starting to take a bus to ease the pressure on the foot.

I thought it was shin splints but was wondering if I just pulled a muscle or ligament.

Cant really get to a doctors at the moment with it.

(also I am getting new footwear, I was using old battered nikes to get around the astro turf pitch, im sure it didn't help with all that trauma)

would appreciate any advice or if its happened to anymore before.

Esse85

There's loads of previous threads if you were to do a search.

I often get pains in my shins playing astro turf too, i dunno is it shin splints, make sure to do proper stretching before and after.

It could be the fact you havent played in a few years and your body needs time to get used to the pounding on your legs again.

El Torrente

It sounds exactly like shin splints to me, yeah.

Very long periods spent walking in the wrong sorts of footwear (and of course doing running in the wrong sort of footwear) are what's caused shin splints for me in the past. Anytime I've returned to running after a long time not running I've gotten really painful shin splints, the solution has just been to wear a good pair of running trainers with good support and all that, keep running regularly in them and after a week or two my shin splints are gone.

cowzerp

Shin splints are rare and not just sorness of the shins, they can be quite serious and usually take a long time to come on, you've probably just got tight muscles in the calf and the shin area, stretch and ice them after sessions for a while till your flexibility improves..

Sunn

my calf muscles are unusually tight the last few weeks...although not as bad as they used to be.

lynnemc

I heard a good solution for shin splints years ago. It could be an urban legand but no harm trying it. Hot and cold.
Place hot cloths on your shins for a min, then a cold one for another min and repeat the process 3-4 times after every training session.
As i said it was just something i heard so don't hound me if it don't work :P

hooplah

Hi Sunn,

I have problems with shin splints too and came across this article. Its aimed at runners rather than people playing football but I imagine most of the advice would carry over.

The article goes into how they're caused, more importantly how to prevent them and a fair bit of detail on how to treat them under the following headings:


· Anti-inflammatory medications.
· Heat treatments prior to practice.
· Tapping the arch.
· Proper shoes.
· Stretching
· Running on soft even surfaces.
· Ice treatments after practice.


I hope thats some use to you!

Websters

when i was doing basic with the brits a while back a lot of us,even the much fitter guys, would get shin pain from running in boots with full loadout but i always found it to be very temporary pain that goes away once your in the swing of things,the trick is not to try and compensate for the injury too much.keep crackin on till you really cant move on it anymore,hopefully you'll start to strengthen up before then