All About Shin Splints
You’ve been trying to get healthy. You started walking or running. You started losing weight, and feeling more energetic, but before you could really get into it, you start to feel pain in the front of your shin. You think it’s a one-time thing, and it’s not that severe, so you push through it, thinking it will go away next time. But it doesn’t. It gets worse. Eventually, the pain is bad enough to make you stop your exercise. What’s going on? Shin splints!
Shin splints affect a lot of people who recently started exercising (particularly, running, jumping or dancing). And that’s what today’s article will be all about.
We will discuss:
- Definitions: what are shin splints? How do you know if you have it?
- Causes
- Various treatments, from massage, to orthotics, to taping, and of course, my favourite: exercise
DEFINITION
So what exactly are shin splints? The official medical term for it is “medial tibial stress syndrome.”
It’s basically diffuse pain at the front of the shin. Most often, it gets better during the exercise session.
And the location is important. It’s usually felt in the middle of the shin. If it’s felt lower down, it’s often thought that it’s more serious, and may be a fracture.
