Healing Shin Splints
And Getting Back To Wind Sprints

Methods Commonly Prescribed For
Healing Shin Splints

The first thing your doctor, PT, and most websites (running sites or otherwise) will tell you is to stop running (or to get off your feet if that's part of your job) and take some time of to 'let things heal'.

Yuck. All that does is keep you from doing what you want and/or need to do, and it allows the Tendonitis dynamic to set in even deeper. See: What Is Tendonitis

What Shin Splint Treatments Don't Work?

REST: Rest doesn't work. What rest IS good for is stopping new irritation to an already irritated dynamic. If you see an angry hornet's nest, if you poke it things will get worse. But if you don't poke it (rest), there's still an angry hornet's nest to deal with.

Notice that there is a huge difference between Rest and Relaxation of a muscle/structure.

ANTI-INFLAMMATORIES: Anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen are fine to get you through the day, but they don't fix anything, and they certainly don't stop the inflammation process.

Inflammation is a process in and itself, and anti-inflammatories don't get rid of the factors that CAUSE inflammation.

CORTICOSTEROID INJECTIONS: Corticosteroid Injections are fine to get you through the day (if they actually work and if they don't make your symptoms worse)

SHIN SPLINT SURGERY: You'll only need/get surgery if your shin splints are in danger of becoming shin splints, which would be due to Anterior Compartment Syndrome.

PHYSICAL THERAPY For SHIN SPLINTS: At physical therapy they'll do stretching and strengthening and ultrasound and hot packs and cold packs and maybe e-stim. Let me know if that works for you...

CHIROPRACTIC FOR SHIN SPLINTS: Let me know if that works for you.

Healing Shin Splints
What Is Required To Heal Shin Splint Pain?

Shin Splints are ultimately caused by three factors. And no, none of those factors are running, jumping, standing, etc.

The three main factors that cause shin splint pain are:

1. Inflammation.

A Process of Inflammation that kicks in and slowly/quickly builds due to the following two reasons.

2. Muscles are too tight, and getting tighter.

The tighter a muscle is, the less strength it has, and the less it is able to absorb force. All that force has to go somewhere, and it transfers to it's connective tissue connections (which in this case is the entire length of the shin bone, basically).

Also, like a half squeezed sponge, too tight muscle traps waste product and irritant in and keeps new blood and nutrition out.

3. Connective tissue is too tight, and getting tighter.

When muscles contract and shorten/get smaller, and when they stay tight and shortened, connective tissue shrink wraps and compresses the muscle (so muscle literally can't relax and expand).

How Muscle tightness, Connective Tissue tightness, and Inflammation cause Shin Splints

TIGHTNESS CAUSES TOO MUCH STRUCTURAL TENSION AND REDUCED CIRCULATION: The connective tissue that wraps the muscles intimately connects to the connective tissue that wraps around the tibia bone, the periosteum.

EXCESS TENSION CAUSES MICROTRAUMA: Due to this tightness and the torque of muscle contraction with (running, jumping, etc) or without (standing in place) movement, SO MUCH force is applied to the connective tissue structure that one can get microtears in the periosteum wrapping the bone.

INFLAMMATION INCREASES PAIN SIGNAL: Inflammation releases chemical which enhances your sensitivity to pain. Then your nervous system feels more pain, and protects you with more pain and tightness. Which creates more pain and tightness.That's shin splint pain!

So...what are shin splints?

Healing Shin Splints
How Do You Heal Shin Splints?

How do you make shin splints go away? That's in IMPORTANT question to ask if you're interested in healing shin splints.

The answer is, You REVERSE the CAUSES of the shin pain.

It's not rocket science. It's not particularly complex. But the concept of REVERSING shin splints and REVERSING the cause of shin splint pain, is important.

Doctors just try to treat symptoms, but that plan of attack is mostly doomed to fail (success happens, it just all depends) because SOMETHING causes symptoms. Symptoms aren't actually the problem, they're just symptoms.

Now that you know the CAUSE of shin splints, you'll have a better chance of beating it. Healing shin splints is totally doable (and distinctly different than just lowering pain levels).

I keep the complete treatment strategy for my Reversing Shin Splints ebook, but I'll happily suggest the following.

Learning How To Reduce Inflammation is a VERY powerful tool to reduce inflammation (get rid of the pain enhancing chemical) and lower pain levels.

Don't discount the power of this.

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