Pain Lower Leg? It Could Be Shin Splints
Posted on January 27, 2009
Filed Under Lose Weight | Leave a Comment
As much as I hate to admit it getting older does have some downsides. If we eat the same amount of food we did when we were younger we are doomed to pile on extra weight (fat). This is because as we age our metabolism slows down due to less physical activity which in turn means we get fatter.
This addition in weight is slow but sure. At first it’s just couple of pounds here and there, hardly noticeable. The weight you put on after Christmas just doesn’t seem to come off like it used to. Suddenly you find to your horror your clothes are getting tighter and your out of breath climbing the stairs.
You resolve enough is enough and start an workout program. As part of your program you start running or jogging. At first you don’t have a problem but after a couple of months the front of your shins become painful. Chances are you have 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 love to run and use it as my main method of keeping fit. Imagine my horror when after a short distance I started to develop a dull ache down the front of my legs. At the beginning I put it down to my age and just kept running trusting it would go away after I’d warmed up a bit.
I had hoped the pain would just go away but, you guessed it, it got much worse. The pain would get so bad that in the end I couldn’t finish my training and would end up limping home at a snails pace. After a couple of days the pain in my lower legs would go away but it would always come back again if I started running again.
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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