You might be too far into your shin pain story here for my suggestion, but I got my pain back at the beginning of January and got sent to a hand therapist who did acupuncture stimulated by electricity on me, followed by deep calf massaging. It worked!! I went three times (all in a week and a half) and did a whole lot of stretching, now i’m stretching about 4-5 times a day (my calves are too tight, is that the issue with you?) and I haven’t had pain ever since…
I’m warning you though that the electro acupuncture was VERY uncomfortable. Well worth it…
If you ask your doctor on this he might not be too ecouraging on the idea, as from my experiences, medical degrees don’t support “practical” methods too much. I strongly recommend it…
I don’t know what it is, but for some reason they’re feeling reallllyyyy good lately.
I have a few thoughts in mind:
-As opposed to using ice to treat my shins, I decided to stop that and start taking hot baths and going to the sauna every day.
-I eat a little bit better, I take Vit C 1000mg 3x a day, and I also take a Multivitamin/mineral in the morning with breakfast(sustained release type)
-I started working out upper body again…perhaps that affected my hormones
I switched up my shoes, and I’m wearing the arch strengthening/activation system inserts from barefootscience.com. I don’t know if they’re really doing anything or not, but I decided to give it a fair shot. The point is though, my shins are feeling better WITHOUT the custom made orthotics
I’ve been working heavy on stretching and flexibility
It’s an altered sense of improvement, because I constantly wear compression sleeves on my lower legs, which just by themselves make my shins feel instantly better.
-I’m getting ART once a week(I have been for over a month)…but haven’t had any ART in about 2 weeks…going again this monday.
A few days ago I set a powerclean and floor press record. I don’t even know how I got stronger without even working out in over a year. I only gained like 5lbs too. I guess I’ll take it
Either way, my shins still aren’t 100%, but as long as I keep thinking positive, they aren’t bothering me. I did an 800m run today and they didn’t bother me, but I can tell they’re still gonna need some more time.
Maybe if I throw in some MSM, glucosamine, and glutamine I’ll see even further improvements.
Only add or change one thing at a time, and give each method a fair chance of working, that way it’s much easier to pin-point the problem and the solution. I get shin splints from time to time as well, so I know how frustrating it can be, you wanna train hard and work through it, but you just can’t, but take your time and pinpoint that problem.
i didnt read the entire thread but i know that if you have shin splints that just wont go away see a doctor asap.
i usually have shin splints at the begining of training for about a month. nothing too severe though.
but a friend of mine 3 years ago had shin splints all the time and it turns out he had a stress fracture.
he ended up snapping his leg in half running the 200 indoors. pretty sad. this kid was increadibly fast out of the blocks but it was never the same after that. he recovered and ran for us the following year and was still pretty fast but was definitely not like in times past.
pretty sad man i felt horrible for him. but yea take care of your body. no matter what any coach or doctor tells you.
if you feel something is off then just take a break. there is not a single machine in the world that knows how you feel or that knows your body as well as you do.
Very good advice everytime I start to feel shin pain im afraid of a stress fracture, but thankfully (knock on wood) it has shin splints that i have been aboe to treat.
It really doesn’t make sense to me though. It’s been over a year and they really won’t just go away.
Is there anything one could do about imbalanced ankles? My right ankle became noticeably looser after a bad ankle sprain(july 2005), and while it’s not in pain really anymore, the whole ankle itself is looser and I think it affects my biomechanics. That sprain came 6 months before my shin splints, and the splints came a few months after a moderate hamstring pull(could barely walk right after tearing it).
This has all gotta be related to my damn ankle!!! Is there anything at all I could do to even out my ankles?
You know a have a very simillar problem except my hamstring pull came about because my left leg is much shorter do to a breakage many years ago. This has then pulled my hips out of balance causing the pulls. Everything in your body and something in your back could cause problems in your calfs. Thats the problem with a lot of therapists they only treat or look at the immediate problem and never look at the original cause and work off of that. A good chiro should help with that though
Well, the guy I’m seeing is trying to loosen up my hips and illiotibial band as well, but when I mentioned the ankle to him, he said there really wasn’t much he could do with it. I don’t know if that’s BS or not though.
But I’m really starting to think its not my “flat” feet that are the problem(I leave normal arched wet prints anyways, even though they are sorta flat). My body broke down after I hurt my ankle.
Maybe I need to see a different guy who can actually do something with the ankle?
Okay basically…MRI results showed the same thing in both legs: mild periosteal edema noted overlying the anteromedial aspect of the mid tibial shaft consistent with shin splints. No abnormal fluid collection or soft tissue mass. No myotendinous signal abnormality. No evidence of cortical destruction or periosteal new bone formation. No fracture or destructive lesion.
The doctor said I should just work out because I’m young, and I’ve tried everything for over a year. What would you guys do in my shoes. I haven’t worked out in over a year =/
If it got to the point where I could not get rid of them, like a loss of a year, then loss of another 6 months isnt horrible, if you could improve the shin splints, or rid of them. You must be doing something, cause you still have them.
If it was me, I would do zero impact in my training, ZERO. No running, no jumping, no plyos, no skipping, nothing. How much do you weigh? I would possibly try loosing some weight, maybe even get lighter than im use to, make it even easier on my lower body once I do re-introduce running back into my routine. I would research everything about lower body warmups, recovery, and stretching. Introduce those concepts into my routine, and STICK with them. I would do JUST weight training, not until I THINK my shin splints are gone, but until I know, 100% they are gone, just weight training for maybe as long as 6 months, if thats what it takes. Right now, nothing matters, your strength, your speed, nothing, your pretty much injured, a stratch, conecentrate on zero impact training, cause you are unable to run until you fix this weak link in your body. Then once I knew forsure, shin splints were gone, I would re-introduce light jogging back into my routine, maybe 1 time a week, maybe barefoot on sand, or in nike frees on grass, something that has no impact, but allows me to build muscles in my feet. Then after a month, twice a week of light jogging. If I ever felt any sort of shin splint coming on, even ever so slightly, the workout would stop, maybe even take a week off from running. Becuase nothing is more important to me, then keeping shin splints away. When I was ready to introduce speed training back in, maybe just 1 sprint for the first workout, thats it. Everything in very small steps! Remember, you are a worse than normal case it sounds, you may never get to train like other people, you have to adapt, you may never get run 3 times a week on a track, it might be just too much for you. And plyos, personally, I would never do them if I were you. You’ll need to find other ways to progress.
Yeah alright, maybe working and standing for hours upon hours has aggravated them as well. I just took a week off of work and the shins felt a lot better. I dunno what to do. The pain is medial and along the bone, so I dunno if strengthening the anterior tibialis would do much. I found a great way to work it though, using a cable and pulley weight system.
Lifting doesn’t hurt them, but I think afterwards they’re slightly aggravated, like squats and deadlifts and just weight-bearing with loads in general.
I’m 5’7 165…with weird proportions lol. almost 15" arms…42-43" chest, 24" quads, and 14" calves (very small). My calves aren’t really too weak though, despite never directly training them. I’ve seated calf raised with a barbell over 600lbs. The podiatrist said I have very tight calves though. Stretching doesn’t seem to help…no matter how much I do. ART didnt help (maybe it was just the guy).
I could just tough it out and maybe wearing orthotics and doing shin exercises and warming up will help in getting rid of them???
Also, oddly enough, its mental some of the time. Like earlier today I did a half mile run, and I didn’t even feel it. Right now they’re bothering me a little though.
I had a very similar problem as you currently have (without the hamstring tear). I’ve had recurring shin splints (ATCS) for the past 2-3 years and I’m also an overpronator.
However, as of late I’ve been sprinting and doing tempos on grass without any significant pain in the shins (for about the past 2-3 months - which is a record for me, so I think I might’ve got over it, fingers crossed :o).
In the past I had tried custom made orthotics (still wear them), RICE, total layoff high impact activity and stretching the gastroc and soleus to no avail. But towards the end of last year of this I took about 3 months ‘off’ to religiously concentrate on rehabbing my shin splints (by reducing pronation through reducing anterior pelvic tilt and improving strength in the lower leg muscles). Here’s what I did:
NO sprinting, plyos or tempo runs (I still don’t do plyos at the moment - I did and still do OLs instead) except for short hill sprints (15-20m) instead of speed work, as they didn’t cause me any pain in the shins.
Did full dynamic warm-ups including glute activation (side lying clams, bird dogs w/out the arm movement, glute bridges -single leg and double leg) hip and spine mobility for all workouts (used one of DeFranco’s warm-ups in his WSFSB)
Weights as per usual (fullbody 3x/week) with greater emphasis on PC exercises (hip extension). I also included high rep (15-50) gastroc/AT supersets twice a week.
Ab activation (don’t know if that’s what you call it :D) - but I basically worked through the exercises in “Core Training For Smart Folks” with a posterior pelvic tilt as it emphasises, 3x/week.
Subbed tempo for low impact activites such as ellipticals, calisthenics circuits (I did include short interval skipping in these), rowing etc.
Static stretching (mainly quads, HF, lower back, gastroc and soleus) and foam roller (all of the lower body - particularly the quads/HF and lower back) 3x/week - did this before going to bed.
Oh and I also lost BF. I wasn’t excessively high in the first place but I dropped 5kg without really put much effort into doing so (just consistent training and eating healthier - no calorie counting/carb watching etc.)
Once I felt ready, I started on low volume tempo work (~800m total and short distance reps of 50m) and gradually progressed the total volume (it’s still low at the moment) and rep distance (I only go as far as 100m per rep). As of the last 6-8 weeks, I’ve added max effort sprint sessions (again starting off with short distance reps and low volume ~150m total). I still do most of the stuff above, except I don’t do calf and AT exercises anywhere near as much as I used to.
The lifting routine I used was pretty similar to the one I use currently only real differences were I didn’t squat only deadlifted (due to schools facilities), I did more dumbbell work (again due to schools facilites), I used an ABA format instead of ABC like I do now and I did more lower leg work as I mentioned…
Routine looked something like this (3x/week - MWF):
Weights A
Heavy Upper Push (i.e. any pressing variations or dips) - work to 3-5RM
Unilateral Lower (lunges variations, step-ups, split squats) - 3 x 6-10
Upper Pull A (i.e. pull-up/down variations, face pulls) - 2 x 6-10
Hip Extension (i.e. RDLs, SLDLs, pull throughs, GMs, hyperextensions) - 2 x 6-10
Upper Pull B (i.e. rowing variations) - 2 x 6-10
Obliques (i.e woodchops, side bends) - 2 x 8-15
Weights B
Heavy Lower (i.e. sumo deadlifts, snatch grip deadlifts, cleans, snatches and squat variations - which I didn’t do at that time) - work to 3-5RM
Heavy Upper Pull A (I generally did rowing movements because my chins/pull ups weren’t strong enough at that stage) - work to 3-5RM
Hip Extension - 2 x 6-10
Upper Push (dumbbell pressing) - 2 x 6-10
Upper Pull B (generally did pull-up variations) - 2 x 6-10
Rotator Cuff work (i.e. cuban presses, L-lateral raises, scap push ups) - 2 x 10-15
Generally around 3 minutes rest between work sets.
My warm-up before all workouts (weights, hills and low intensity work):
BW Squats x 15
Push Ups x 15
Jumping Jacks x 20
Walking Lunges x 10 per leg
High Knees x 10s
Butt Kicks x 10s
Leg Swings (both planes) x 10 per leg
Double leg Glute Bridge x 10
Single leg Glute Bridge x 8
Iron Cross x 8 per leg
Prone Scorpion x 8 per leg
Fire Hydrant x 8 fwd, 8 bkw per leg
Bird Dogs (no arms) x 8 per leg
Side Lying Clams - x 10 per leg
Mountain Climbers - 8 per leg
Groiners - 8 per leg
Running As - 2 x 20m
Running Bs - 2 x 20m
You mention you haven’t worked out for a while so I’d go easy to start with (i.e. don’t go for the 3-5RM straight away and adjust volume as required).
Ab activation exercises can be found here: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=990092 (key point is to do them with the posterior pelvic tilt - i.e. pre tense abs and back flat on ground) - I normally did them as part of the warm up, or just randomly during the day i.e. between study breaks (probably best to do them in the warm-up though).
The key for me bringing everything I had read about together applying it and doing it consistently.
If there’s anything else you want to know about my rehab let me know…
You think that doing any impact at all(like in the warmup) is fine though? Dunno how literal you were with the “no impact” thing. Now about the cardio…think I should do something like 20-30 minutes on the elliptical Tues/Thurs/Sat then?
And as for the lifting set up there…are you doing Mon:A Wed:B Fri: A ? Otherwise if you did A+B every day thats a lot of heavy work eh?
I didn’t mean to say NO impact. I probably should’ve rephrased it to no high impact, after all I did do some impact activities i.e hills, skipping etc.
For low intensity work I normally did:
Tu - Elliptical (~20-25mins w/ 10-20s hard, 40-60s easy repeats)
Th - Rowing (distance/time parameters or interval style)
Sat - BW calisthenics circuits (10-15 mins, w/ no rest b/w exercises - exercises I used were push up variations, squats, chin ups, dips, skipping drills (w/ out excessive knee bend, walking lunges, squat thrusts etc.)
You can just stick to Elliptical, but I reckon a bit of impact and variation would be better for the rehab process.
And yes the lifting set up was:
M1: A
W1: B
F1: A
M2: B
W2: A
F2: B
and so on… You could do it two days per week if you prefer (i.e if the frequency is too much for you initially)
EDIT: I forgot to mention I also did a lot of my workouts and warm-ups barefoot (apart from weights and hills)
Hm…if you were in my position(just inflammation…but it annoys the hell out of me) would you do the hills right now? If so how might you go about doing it(like %max…volume.etc). lol I hope im not buggin you with all the questions
and yeah they’re fine in regular trainers, but spikes are so small to begin with…
