You’ve been trying to get healthy. You started walking or running. You started losing weight, and feeling more energetic, but before you could really get into it, you start to feel pain in the front of your shin. You think it’s a one-time thing, and it’s not that severe, so you push through it, thinking it will go away next time. But it doesn’t. It gets worse. Eventually, the pain is bad enough to make you stop your exercise. What’s going on? Shin splints!

Shin splints affect a lot of people who recently started exercising (particularly, running, jumping or dancing). And that’s what today’s article will be all about.

We will discuss:

• Definitions: what are shin splints? How do you know if you have it?
• Causes
• Various treatments, from massage, to orthotics, to taping, and of course, my favourite: exercise

Original source: here.

Definition

So what exactly are shin splints? The official medical term for it is “medial tibial stress syndrome.”

It’s basically diffuse pain at the front of the shin. Most often, it gets better during the exercise session.

And the location is important. It’s usually felt in the middle of the shin. If it’s felt lower down, it’s often thought that it’s more serious, and may be a fracture.

One question that often gets asked is “how long does it take to heal shin splints?” The answer is typically 2-6 weeks, if you just lay off whatever is causing the pain, and combine it with the suggestions we will talk about later. That’s the approximate recovery time from shin splints.

What Causes Shin Splints?

Just because we know what shin splints are, it doesn’t tell us anything about what causes them. That’s what we’ll discuss in this section. There are multiple causes to shin splints. In no particular order:

Cause #1: Sudden Increase In Exercise Volume

If you go from running 1-2 times per week, to suddenly doing it 4-6 times per week, that will certainly put you at risk for shin splints.

And if you raise the amount of time spent exercising very quickly, you’re also likely to develop shin splints. If you’re used to running for 20-30 minutes at a time, and all of a sudden, you decide to start running for 45 minutes at a time, your shins may hurt.

As a general rule of thumb, it is recommended not to raise your training volume by more than 10% per week. So if you’re used to running 5K per workout, don’t run more than 5.5K the following week, and 6K the week after that, and so on. Smaller increases are fine as well.

Cause #2: Foot and Shin Structure

If you have flat feet, or other kinds of foot and shin structural changes, those may be contributing factors. As this is not my area of expertise, I would recommend you see a podiatrist or chiropodist to get proper treatment for that.

Cause #3: Overweight

If you’re overweight, it will predispose you to shin splints, because with every step you take, your shin and calf muscles are working harder than they need to. Ah, the irony. You try walking/running to help you lose the weight in the first place, and this is what you get.

Nonetheless, that’s the reality of the situation. If you are overweight, use other forms of cardiovascular activity as exercise, besides running. Running may be the worst form of exercise for someone overweight (maybe tied with skipping rope). Initially, stick to lower-impact forms of cardio, like the elliptical, cycling, rowing, swimming… pretty much anything besides running.

There’s a saying: “you don’t run to get fit. You get fit to run.”

If you absolutely MUST run, then run on grass, sand, or a soft surface, rather than asphalt or cement. It’s not as good as just not running, but if you must, then do it that way.

And this is not saying “don’t ever run.” Rather, what I’m saying is “don’t run, until your weight comes down.”

Cause #4: Muscular Imbalances

In almost everyone who has shin splints, there will be imbalances between the calves (the back of the leg muscles), and the muscles on the front of the shin (the tibialis anterior).

The calves are too tight, and the tibialis anterior is too weak.

Shin Splints Recovery Strategies

There are various available treatments for shin splints. As you can guess, the treatments are based on the causes.

Recovery Strategy #1: Orthotics

As you see in cause #2: a suboptimal foot structure can predispose you to shin splints. So one treatment that is often recommended is getting orthotics.

But again, since I’m no expert in this field, I won’t get into it too much. See a podiatrist and chiropodist to see if it’s something that makes sense for you.

Recovery Strategy #2: Massage

As you see in cause #4: one of the causes of shin splints is tight calf muscles. Getting a good deep tissue massage on the calves can help relieve tight calf muscles.

But a word of warning: if you’re used to the massages where you’re lying there, relaxing, enjoying, and maybe falling asleep, this is nothing at all like it. A deep tissue massage on the calves is not pleasant. It may make you feel like you want to jump out of your skin. It hurts, it may make you sweat, it may make you curse your massage therapist. But it can also be effective.

Recovery Strategy #3: Taping

You have probably seen athletes walking around with colourful tape on different parts of their bodies. Here’s an example of what taping would look like with shin splints:

Original source: here.

I put it in here more for completeness, even though taping is not exactly a “treatment” for shin splints, per se. Rather, what it does, is it gives you some extra artificial muscle. If the muscle on the front of the shin is weak, if you tape it, you take some of the load off that muscle. The reason for that is that the tape is elastic. Muscle is also elastic. So essentially, it’s artificially boosting muscle strength.

But this simply masks symptoms. It’s not a long-term solution. Not to say though that it’s not helpful.

Recovery Strategy #4: Stretches

This is a common treatment, but just because it’s common doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with it. Stretches are frequently recommended for shin splints (especially stretches of the calf muscles). We have this mentality that stretching is good. We need to stretch all muscles, all the time. But I’ve debunked that myth in my article, Stretching Exercises: You’re Doing Them Wrong.

Stretching has its time and place. But for shin splints, traditional stretches only provide temporary relief – they are not a long-term solution.

To make stretching an effective part of the treatment for shin splints, you must first identify if your calf muscles are short. You do that with range of motion testing. It’s beyond the scope of this article to teach you how to do range of motion testing, but that’s worth doing with a professional. After all, if your calf muscles aren’t short, there’s no point in stretching them (in fact, you may do more damage than good).

But let’s assume your calves are short. Then what? What stretches do you do for your shin splints?

It’s a bit hard to explain in text, but you have to do calf stretches, using the PNF technique (that stands for “proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.” Fancy, I know). Here’s an example of one calf stretch

Original source: here.

And here’s an example of another stretch:

Original source: here.

Additionally, you have to wonder: why are the muscles short? What controls muscles? Nerves. Nerves control muscles. So if the muscles are short, could it be the nervous system telling the calves to shorten? Maybe. That’s where modalities like Trigenics may be helpful, in helping the nervous system release the calf. Trigenics is a neurological treatment system that resets the way the brain communicates with the body for increased strength and motion, and decreased pain. And yes, it’s a service that we offer, so if you want to try it out, contact us.

Recovery Strategy #5: Strengthening

Remember, shin splints are not caused by just tight calves. It’s both tight calves, and weak muscles on the front of the shin (tibialis anterior). So to that end, you also need to strengthen those muscles.

How do you do that? Quite simply, as you’re sitting there, pull your toes and your foot up towards the ceiling, like below Hold that for 10 seconds, and repeat 5-6 times. Do that 2-3 times per day.

Original source: here.