Monday, January 26, 2009

Tips If You Get Shin Splint Pain

By Carol J Bartram

As you get older frequent exercise becomes much more important. Muscle wastage will occur as we get older because our metabolism slows down. In other words we burn less calories. This means that even if we don't eat any more gradual weight increase is unavoidable and we start to pile on the extra pounds.

This creeping weight increase is slow, but relentless. Just half a pound here, half a pound there. You put it on at Christmas " it doesn't go away like it used to! Holidays add a little more, and before you know it, you're 7lb overweight and your favorite clothes don't fit any longer. Now how did that happen?

Jogging or running is an first-rate way to burn calories and get back in control of your body. Added to that, it makes you feel good! But what can you do if, like me, you love to run, but suffer from Shin Splints?

I've been around horses all my life and always knew if you worked them on very hard ground they were likely to develop splints. Now splints in a horse can leave them lame (limping) for a long time. I never realised the same could happen to us. In humans though it's called Shin Splints.

I like to use jogging as my main way of keeping in reasonable shape. But I was finding that, after only a short time, my shins would start to ache, down at the bottom of my leg. At first I thought I was just a bit stiff, and it would go off as I warmed up more.

Being an optimist I hoped the problem would go away all on it's own. How wrong I was, far from going away the pain in my lower legs got much worse. The more I ran the worse it got until in the end I couldn't even finish my training and you could often see me hobbling home muttering under my breath.

Before I trained as a Sports Massage Therapist and discovered how to treat Shin Splints I always thought it meant you had a splint. Shin Splints are actually caused by the inflammation of the muscles that run down the front of your leg. It's a type of repetitive strain injury of the lower leg.

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