Shin splints

I have been training for most of this year and in recent weeks have really stepped it up with more running and skipping. Trouble is, especially the days after a lot of skipping, I'm getting some nasty pain in my right shin and a little pain in the left.

I read on Wikipedia that the only cure for shin splints is rest - but that sucks because it will put my fitness back and then their is no guarantee that the problem won't come back as soon as I start running/skipping again anyway.

At the moment I am managing it by having a day off to let the legs heal. eg this week I went to the gym Mon, Tues, Wed but yesterday and today I have just done push ups and other floor exercises. It's still a little sore now, but I want to go running and do some skipping tomorrow to get the old heart rate up.

The pain is not in the shin itself but rather in the muscle to the inside of both legs.

Anybody have experience with this or no any tricks to help?

It's the impact that causes a lot of problems. If you can reduce amount of impact and give your body enough rest when it needs it you'll be okay.

For your skipping I wouldn't do it while wearing boxing shoes, they're made to give you traction on a canvas, not to cushion your step. Get a good pair of running shoes that are made to take some of the shock. Do your skipping on something that has some give to it, floor boards is better than asphault, there's one thing that I found that does the trick no matter where you are. Go to a sporting goods shop and pick up some foam yoga matts especially the kind that go together like jig saw pieces. I've even seen something similar at autopart/hardware stores.

The last thing is when you're skipping is to not jump so high for each jump, instead jump just enough to clear the rope. You can still do the double jump and the other techniques provided that you've taken out a lot of the impact from the exercise.

The same goes for your roadwork. Avoid running on hard surfaces, get a good pair of running shoes, and invest some time learning pose and proper running technqiue.

Thanks for that man, will let you know how I get on.

You need to stretch your calf muscles and strengthen your tibialis anterior (shin muscle ;))

two suggestions for after the fact therapy...1 if you are rich, try taking one cap of cissus, 1 cap of a decent proetelytic enzyme and some fish oil or efas take the fish oil three times a day, also ingest a teaspoon of olive oil with the supplements this should help with swelling in leg muscles not so sure about the shin splints...

option two for the poor folk, try filling a bucket, tub or garbage can(preferably clean ) with water then add a generous amount of ice and try to soak but for no LONGER THAN 5 minutes....you want to reduce swelling, not induce frostbite...and all its friends including gangrene....try this if ya got the willpower, it is very cold....

The problem is bad preperation and gravity the two dont mix

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Originally Posted by AdamGB

You need to stretch your calf muscles and strengthen your tibialis anterior (shin muscle ;))

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How do you strengthen that muscle?

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Originally Posted by Scrap

The problem is bad preperation and gravity the two dont mix

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I don't understand Scrap.

Any movementis working against gravity , the more impact the more contraction in tendons and muscle occures the more you work eventually brings injury. Muscle will not perform as it should the pathways of energy are reduced as are the pathways for the expulsion of lactic instead of expanding fitness levels they are reduced. Adam touched on it Stretch, the bigger the expansion the larger the contraction this should be the aim. The body works all or nothing, so all the body should be stretched to stop any inbalance happening.Been working for some time on dynamic stretching with the results achieved this is the way forward.

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Originally Posted by iceman

two suggestions for after the fact therapy...1 if you are rich, try taking one cap of cissus, 1 cap of a decent proetelytic enzyme and some fish oil or efas take the fish oil three times a day, also ingest a teaspoon of olive oil with the supplements this should help with swelling in leg muscles not so sure about the shin splints...

option two for the poor folk, try filling a bucket, tub or garbage can(preferably clean ) with water then add a generous amount of ice and try to soak but for no LONGER THAN 5 minutes....you want to reduce swelling, not induce frostbite...and all its friends including gangrene....try this if ya got the willpower, it is very cold....

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I know you're name's Iceman, but personally I don't believe in these ice baths, I know that there's a lot of anecdotal evidence for them but to me warming up and cooling down properly then having a nice hot bath in some Epsom salts have worked very well... ;)

Any in depth research on ice baths has in a lot of cases seen more DOM, though this is amongst average people and not the top athletes who started taking them at first.

Fish oil is great stuff though ;D

ice is what you want if you got inflamation at least at first or else all the phiso's and chiropractors are lying to me....as for epsom salts, that does do good for dom and a proper warm up and cool down are usually the most over looked aspect of it all...yes fish (corteuosly ) donate much to the body via their oil...and its is a cheap supplement...hopefully the industry won't catch on and jack the price up

One point of interest, inflamation is the body response and protection to an injured area. Thats telling you something.