Reached the ripe old age of 41 without ever having suffered SS, now they hit me. Want to get back running again, but worried that I aggravate.

Seems to be lots of conflicting info, anyone on here got some positive stories?.

Training for a fire competition at work in may, and I need to train and get sprints in!.

Rest, brufen and ice now they have already flared up.

When back into training, keep your running speed down initially and try to take quick steps with your stride length short to minimise impact. Slight uphill gradient if on a treadmill.

Get your running gait checked and make sure you have the ideal footwear.

You can get exercise bands to build up the shin muscles on the front of your leg. Never tried them but heard positive things. Makes sense to balance typical cyclists over-developed calves.

Run off road, less impact, encourages you to run on the balls of your feet

I used heat rather than ice to ease symptoms

RE: heat /cold thing. As I understand it current thinking is that the initial 48 hours of an injury should be treated with cold in order to prevent/reduce swelling. After 48 hours whatever is going to swell, has now swollen. Application of heat will open blood vessels and promote healing.

started jogging again after many years off, suffered for a while, but no problem any more, stretching helped me out.

A lot of good tips in the ‘Chi Running’ book – bought it on a whim in the airport before a long flight. Cleared up my shin splints, lots of good advice on technique, although quite a lot of it is a bit airy-fairy too.

Anyway, it worked for me – I started concentrating on leaning (almost falling) forward, and getting my foot-strike ‘behind’ me. I think I was overstriding and throwing my feet out in front and that was what causing my shin splints.

Stretching too

I’ll have a look at some stretches, but I think Chi running whilst running out 150′ of fire hose is maybe a bit much! (I’ve read the book btw, some good stuff in there)

Strength train the leg muscles which in turn strengthens the bones.
Keep off the Ibuprofen. Heat over cold to help healing.

Chi running for firemen… You are not dragging the hose; Rather, try and imagine the hose is pushing you forward 🙂

I used to get shin splints years ago, the cross-country captain at university taught me a stretch which banished them completely:

Stand with your feet normal distance apart, and put all of your weight on the outside of your feet, lifting the insides up. Hold this for about 30s. Do this before your runs and you should see a significant improvement.

Cheers, Rich

Thanks Rich, I’ll give that a bash.

Not a fireman, merely an emergency responder playing at it!