Shin splints are one of the most common overuse injuries. Usually athletes (especially runners) end up falling victim to this. Let’s try to understand what this is and how soon you can recover from shin splints safely.
What Are Shin Splints?
Shin splints refers to pain in the front part of your lower legs (shins). This is an overuse, over- stress injury where the muscles, tendons, and tissues around your tibia become inflamed.
Shin splints are medically called medial tibial stress syndrome.
What Do Shin Splints Feel Like?
Shin splints are felt in the form of a dull pain near the tibia bone in the lower leg.
The pain usually increases with increase in activity.
What Causes Shin Splints?
Shin splints are caused by repeated stress to your shin bone and connective tissue by pulling and tugging during a physical activity.
The complication usually arises when you suddenly end up increasing your exercise intensity.
Unlike most other muscles, we usually don’t end up training our tibialis muscles leading to an overuse injury.
Who Is Usually Affected By Shin Splints?
Although anyone can get shin splints, it is usually people who perform activities that put repetitive load on the shin muscle end up contracting this problem -
- Runners
- Dancers
- People with flat feet or rigid arches
- People with Vitamin D deficiency
- People with osteoporosis
Treatment For Shin Splints
First of all, shin splints are very common and not a serious problem in 99% of all cases. Most people make a recovery by taking some time off from their sport within 3 to 4 weeks.
So there is no reason to worry.
Shin splints treatment usually involves -
- Rest - Take rest from your regular sport that causes a pain flare up
- Ice - Ice the area that hurts whenever the pain is too much to bear. (I would personally advise against regular icing if there is no pain)
- Stretch - Stretch your shin muscle in its pain free range of motion as frequently as you can
- Load - Slowly load your shin muscle with isometric holds and exercises to strengthen the tibialis muscle
- Massage - Massage the area regularly to drive blood flow to that region for faster healing
How To Prevent Shin Splints
Now while shin splints are not a serious issue, they can pull you back in your training and in very rare cases take a long time to heal.
Here are some tips for you to prevent yourselves from developing shin splints -
- Increase your activity intensity slowly - Make sure to increase your load and exercise intensity gradually over time so your muscles can adapt to it
- Stretch before and after your training - Make sure to stretch your muscles before training so lengthen your muscles and make sure that the load is distributed across all muscles efficiently
- Train your tibialis anterior muscles - Train your tibialis muscle with tibialis raises and ankle exercises to keep your muscles healthy and ready for the beating
- Rest between activities - Rest between activities to ensure your muscles get enough time to recover and heal, and become stronger for the next round
- Listen to your body - Don’t ignore pain and push through it during an activity. It can lead to long term injuries.
- Use the right shoes - Highly padded shoes can cause unnatural stance during activities loading your tibia more than it is ready for. Try wearing barefoot shoes that have zero heel to toe drop for maximum stability and balance for your training.
Other than this, if you feel that your shin splints pain is not reducing even after a couple of months, it would be the right time to go see a professional who can check you up and provide you with proper medical advice.
Happy training.