Is shin pain stopping your healthy lifestyle?
Has going up and down stairs been a little harder than normal? Or have you felt that you’re not as fit as your were last year. We’ve all been in this situation.
With a sudden burst of inspiration, you decided that you’re going to get back into running or exercise.
First week you feel amazing !
But suddenly you’re getting burning pain in your shins and you feel tight and getting annoying pain.
This is called Shin Splints.
What is it?
Shin splints, also known as medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), is an overuse injury to the muscles and bone a the front of the leg.
How is it caused?
When you suddenly increase any weight bearing exercises, your body needs to adapt.
If you increase it too quickly, you body doesn’t have time to recovery.
The extra stress that you are putting on your body can lead to the tibalis anterior muscle being over worked.
This leads to micro tears in the muscle, which give your pain.
What can you do to fix it?
Best thing for you to do is to:
Change the exercise amount.
Best starting action is to reduce your exercise volume to 30%. This will be enough stress to continue to stimulate growth and adaptation without over stressing your body.
Give your body at least a week or two to adapt to this new volume before slowly increasing it.
Gentle self massage
After you shower, use a little moisturizers and gentle massage the muscles of your shin (not on the bone).
Make sure to rub from your neck towards your toes.
Only use enough pressure to feel slight discomfort. You should NOT feel any pain.
Taping
Taping can be a good way to offload the stress you put on your shin.
Refer to the video below to learn how to tape.
5. Isometric Exercises
Isometric exercises let you use your muscle in a safe range, where you don’t lengthen or shorten the muscle fibres. This is safe as it can encourage recovery without causing further damage to the muscle.
6. See a physiotherapist
There are treatment options such as needling, massage and taping that your physiotherapist can do to help reduce pain.
If you need help with your shin splints or have any questions, click here to book or don’t hesitate to contact us on 0402 832 329 or email us at admin@aurumphysiotherpay.com.au
Thank you for your time.
