Have you ever felt pain in the front of your lower legs each time you run? You feel as though your legs are on fire! You have probably felt the pain of shin splints.
The name ‘shin splints’ is a description of pain felt over the front of the tibia bone – the front bone on the lower leg. The lower leg actually has two bones – the tibia and fibula. The tibia is the larger bone to the front of the leg. Shin splints describes pain along the front of that bone, usually located anywhere from 2 inches below the knee to 2 inches above the ankle. The origination of the pain is usually from inflammation along the tendon (posterior peroneal tendon) that runs along the front of the bone.
Shin splints are common in runners and aggressive walkers who enjoy their sport and train hard. However, there are other reasons for athletes to suffer from shin splints besides overuse. You can recognize the pain of shin splints because they are very apparent at the beginning of your run, ease up after you are warmed up and then reappear toward the end of the workout.
Causes of shin splints can be overuse but they are also common in runners who do an excessive amount of hill running, have tight calf muscles or tight Achilles tendons, running on uneven terrain, doing speed work, using worn out shoes without adequate support or in runners and walkers who have poor biomechanical structure to their foot. This means that runners who over pronate while running put an undue amount of stress to the tibial area and thus cause this overuse injury. So while shin splints may be an over use injury you must find the reason for the overuse so that you can make adjustments to your training or equipment to prevent further damage after recovery.