How Chiropractic Treatment Helps Shin Splints
Shin splints are one of the most common and frustrating ailments to plague runners. Shin splint pain is caused by the swelling of muscles, tendons and bone tissue around the shin; essentially, shin splint pain is caused by overloading your shin bone. Whether you’re training for your first 5K or logging some serious distance each week, a bad case of shin splints can keep you from pounding the pavement. Shin splints can also affect dancers and gymnasts, or anyone who is engaged in high impact and repetitive exercise of the lower legs.
Shin Splints? Chiropractic Treatment Can Relieve Pain
If you’re suffering from shin splints, at home care can only do so much to relieve pain and swelling. The good news is that there are other treatment options besides simply icing the shins or popping ibuprofen for several days. Read on to learn how to manage shin splint pain and reduce the risk for its occurrence:
Address the root cause.
Shin splints are often due to underlying biomechanical issues that are never properly corrected. For example, if the body is not lined up correctly due to a spinal vertebrae being misaligned, the body will be off its center of balance. This misalignment can trigger stress all the way down the body, including to the lower legs, and increase the risk for developing shin splints. Chiropractic adjustments can correct this root problem.
Be smart about exercise.
If you’re a new runner or just getting back into running after an extended break, ease into the distance and difficulty. Running up hills, significantly increasing distance, or suddenly upping your number of training days can increase your risk for shin splints. You are also more likely to develop shin splints if you have flat feet or very rigid foot arches, don’t wear the correct shoes, or wear worn out shoes. After 250 miles, running shoes lose over half of their ability to absorb shock – continuing to run with worn out shoes increases the risk for shin splints and other injuries. Talk to our chiropractor about arch support.
Do you have shin splint pain?