Shin Splints, my take

So this is my own analysis on what, how and why of Shin Splints

Shin Splints:

As Wikipedia describes it: Shin splints is a general medical term denoting medial tibial stress syndrome, a painful condition in the shins, often caused by the stresses of running, jumping, dancing, and sprinting, and usually heals slowly.

Runners World: Shin splints, the catch-all term for lower leg pain that occurs below the knee either on the front outside part of the leg (anterior shin splints) or the inside of the leg (medial shin splints), are the bane of many athletes, runners, tennis players, even dancers. They often plague beginning runners who do not build their mileage gradually enough or seasoned runners who abruptly change their workout regimen, suddenly adding too much mileage, for example, or switching from running on flat surfaces to hills.

Reason:

1)     The biggest reason for shin splints is the sudden increase in mileage

2)      Also you might be wearing wrong shoes, most probably worn out shoes

3)      Too much running on road / hard surfaces

4)      Landing on the HEEL while running

The above facts can be found everywhere over the internet and the runners magazine. Now here’s my take on this.

I jumped into a tough marathon and Ultra marathon training in the beginning of June 2010, I did a ramp up of my mileage, increasing it by 10% every week, but I still ended up having shin splints, which were pretty painful. This has always been my problem, I start getting shin splints once the weekly mileage starts hovering around 65+ KM . so here is the analysis of what was wrong with me. Have a look at these, maybe a lot of you guys are also doing it….

1)     My running shoes were worn out.

2)     The shoes that I wear to work were in a terrible shape, imagine this, you are in your running shoes only for about 1-2 hours on an average weekday. But you spend a lot more time in your work shoes. Do give it a thought, don’t get carried away by fashion. Just answer this question, what is more important to you, looking hep in office or the race that’s 5 months down the line. A friend of mine used to wear heels to work, she ended up injuring her ankle and learnt the lesson the hard way

3)     If you are driving to work, and spending hours doing that, please take off your shoes and then drive. This helped me a lot, apparently pressing that clutch in stop and go traffic (specially applicable for Bangalore), and in an uncomfortable leather shoes might do the damage as well

4)     Stop keeping the wallet in your rear pocket. I have been doing this since a long time and then realized that you a lot prone to ITB pain if you do that, start keeping it in the front pocket or in the laptop bag. Because if you are keeping it in the back pocket and then sitting on a chair for the entire day, you are actually sitting in a wrong posture…..

5)     Now the biggest problem, that I discovered: when you are running don’t try and land on your heels, try and land on the midfoot. This was the biggest problem with me and its been some time now that I have started avoiding landing on the heel and this is showing up in my training. The shin pain has disappeared. See this video , how an elite marathoner lands:

6)     For the above point what Dr Rajat advised me was, wear the Bata PT shoe (keds) in your shorter runs, since it has bare minimum cushioning, landing on the heel would be a little painful and hence you would automatically land on the midfoot, and then this would become a habit. But if you could manage this with your cool running shoes, then its more convenient. Actually the best would be to try barefoot running for some days….

When I had shin splints this time. I just wasn’t in a mood to drop my weekly mileage and let this pain screw up my training plan. So here’s what I did:

1)     Ice it 6-7 times a day

2)     When you are sitting in office / in the bus / stuck in traffic, stretch it

-         Sit tall in a chair with knees bent 90 degrees, feet flat on the ground. Keeping your right heel on the ground, gently raise your right forefoot up and back toward your shin until you reach a point of slight discomfort. Return it to the ground. Repeat 10 times with each foot.

-         From the same position, lift your right forefoot up, and trace the letter "J" in the air with your foot. Return it back to the ground. Repeat 10 times with each foot

-         Sit tall in a chair with your right leg extended and an ankle weight on your foot. Slowly draw your toes back until you reach a point of slight discomfort. Then extend your toes forward until you feel tension. Repeat 10 times with each foot

Doing this actually gave me relief from the shin pain in ONE DAY, and my weekly mileage was intact! Try it!

Happy running