Possible shin splints, anyone able to help?

thehamo

Hey all.

Would like to enter the great Ireland run but the only problem is i suffer from what I think is shin splints. I cant run for more than ten minutes without getting terrible pain all trhough my shins, and completely tightening up resulting in me just having to stop. I am a relatively fit person but these are just holding me back from being able to do any proper training. Has anyone got any ideas, any way to lessen the burdon if not cure?

Thanks in advance,

Mark.

Racing Flat

Becuase shin-splints is a laymans term and not a specific diagnosis it's impossible to advise - so anyone who advises you what to do if you tell them you have shin splints, just ignore.

Shin splints is a catch all term used to describe pain anywhere in the shin. But shin pain can be due to a number of things, most commonly:


Stress fracture (microfractures or breaks within the bone).

Compartmental syndrome (blood entering a compartment of muscles during exercise, but the compartment gets full and so the blood becomes trapped, so fresh blood cannot get in leading to pain and a drop in performance).

Problem/inflammation where the muscles/tendons attach to the shin bones, typically the tibialis posterior or flexor hallucis longus muscles. These muscles go from the shin to the feet, so are used a lot in running.

Muscle/tendon belly pain (strains/tendonopathies) e.g. peroneal tendonopathy.

There are also many more less common causes of shin pain. The appropriate treatment will depend on which type you have, so the best advice, is find out which type it is, probably by going to see someone qualified to do so, e.g. doctor or Chartered Physiotherapist with interest/specialisation/experience in sports injuries. Your typical GP may not have much experience with this.

thehamo

Great stuff thanks.

I was just asking here because i didn't want to fork out the 60 odd quid for the physio but I suppose I'l just have to cough up the money.

looseliver

Hi thehamo,
Any kind of shin pain is normally caused by heel striking and/or dorsiflexing the foot. if you are heel striking Stop. Landing on the heel temporally puts on the brakes each time you land sending that force into your shin and knee joint.
Try landing with your foot under your centre of gravity (mid foot). this will greatly reduce your impact, and will stop your lower legs acting as shock absorbers.
If you are dorsiflexing then you're asking to much of your shin mussels. give them a break. try focusing on keeping your lower legs limp while running. i imagine they're not there when i feel I'm using my shin mussel and i find it works.
Give this a go for a couple of weeks and if you're still in trouble then it's probably something serious, go to a phisio if so.
LL

--amadeus--

looseliver wrote: »

Hi thehamo,
Any kind of shin pain is normally caused by heel striking and/or dorsiflexing the foot.

That's a pretty vast generalisation and I'm not sure that the research backs it up. Do you have any links to articles that verify this?

In general we try to avoid giving specific medical advice like that on this board. This is for a couple of reasons. One is that we are all different - what works for you may make my condition worse. Another is that even medical professionals can't diagnose from a self reported list of symptoms over the internet so the potential for enthusiastic amateurs like us to get a diagnosis wrong (and so give potentially harmful advice) is very, very high. I have no issue with someone saying "Oh I had something like that and this is what I did...". i do have an issue with someone saying "The solution to your problem is..." because it implies that you know the answer. And if wrong advice is followed then conditions can get worse and races missed. A much smaller consideration is the potential liability - if poster A misses an expensive foreign race because of an injury made worse through bad advice on here then there is the potential for us to be held liable. And before you say that would never happen both HM and myself have had threats of legal action made against us as individuals as a result of content posted on here.

(Not sure we've ever fully explained the "no medical advice" rule before but that's the thinking behind it)