Treatment of Shin Splints
Treatment of Shin What?
You hate running. But you’d love to become an officer in the Marines. So you start training for the PFT and when you go from zero to ten miles of running per week, the front of your shins start barking!
Shin splints are one of the most common running injuries, and affect a large amount of candidates and would-be candidates every year. They’re like a tradition.
Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome, aka “Shin Splints”
When the muscle tissue in the front of your leg and the posterior peroneal tendon get fatigued and swollen, you feel the pain known more simply as the splints. Pain usually is centered around the front, outer side of your tibia or shin bone. If you are a hard-charging motivator, you are especially prone to this injury since it is due to overuse or a too-much, too-soon increase in training.
Any Good News?
Since the bad news is that you gave yourself shin splints by training hard, like you wanted, it’s time for the good news. This common injury can be avoided easily by slowly ramping up running workouts, and also can usually be cured after the fact in a week’s time with one simple exercise.
Treatment of Shin Splints
- Stand on the edge of a stair or step.
- Point your toes out from the step and leave only your heel standing on the edge.
- Locking your knees (hold the wall for a little balance), point your foot and toes as far down as you can and smoothly bring them upward as far as you can.
- Repeat.
- Do one set with locked out knees for 30 seconds of constant full-range motion.
- Do your second set with knees bent 45-degrees for 30 more seconds with constant full-range motion.
- Rest one minute
- Repeat the two sets.
- Do the workout three times a day, for a total of 6 30-second sets
Stick to it, and it will work for you. It’s worked for many candidates and Marines before, and is a common workout prescribed by our Athletic trainers in the Marine Corps and by doctors in the civilian world.
Have You Conquered Shin Splints?
If you’ve had shin splints, we’d love to hear what worked for you so please share with other candidates below:
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