Hey everybody, it's Dr. Jo! We are talking about shin splints, and what to do to help
out your shin splints. Hopefully you've already checked out the stretches, and made it feel
a little bit better. Now that it's feeling better, we want to strengthen everything so
you won't have these shin splints anymore. So let's get started with some of the strengthening
exercises. Alright, so the first strengthening exercise to strengthen your shins and ankles
will be with a band. Like we've talked about the bands before, they come in different strengths,
different colors. The yellow is usually the lightest color, and then it goes red, green,
blue, and black. So we're going to start off with the yellow just to get you going, and
let you see how it feels. You don't want to start off too strong because you don't want
to irritate it. So after you've done all your stretches, you want to prop your foot up a
little bit so you have movement. This might not quite be enough, you can roll up a beach
towel and that will give you some good width off the ground so you have movement in your
ankle. What you want to do is take the band and put it just on the balls of your feet.
So you don't want it up on your toes because it will fly off like that, and you don't want
it down low because that's not going to give you enough resistance. So right there on the
ball of your foot. You're going to keep your leg straight, and you're just going to push
down as far as you comfortably can, and they is stretching out your anterior tibialis,
and that's strengthening it as well. You want to come back nice and slow so there's some
control in there. Bring it back as far as you can. So you're just going to push down
and come back. Now as you can see my foot, you don't want your foot shaking around as
you go, you want to try to keep it as still as possible because that is focusing on those
muscles to help strengthen them. If you feel like your ankle is wiggling around like that,
you probably have too much resistance. So go down on resistance, and even if the lightest
band is too much, then just don't use the band and just push down and pull up as far
as you can. Once you can do 20-25 with one band and it feels easy and you don't feel
any burning anywhere, then you want to bump up to the next resistance band. Alright, so
the next strengthening exercise, you're going to be standing. So let's stand up and we'll
show you those. Okay, so here's some standing strengthening exercises for your ankles, your
calves, and your anterior tibialis muscles in the front to help out with those shin splints.
So the first one, what you want to do, I'm going to turn at an angle so you can see.
This is the first step, this should be the easiest one for you. It's going to be a simple
raise up on your toes and roll back onto your heels. If you need something to hold onto,
make sure you hold on, you don't want to be falling, you don't want there to be too much
pain. So if you need something to hold onto to stabilize, that's fine. So go up on your
toes and back on your heels. You don't want your feet to be completely together, you want
to have a nice separated stance. Up on your toes and back on your heels. So once you've
tried going up on your toes and back on your heels and that becomes easy, then you can
add movement in it, and that's what we call dynamic movement. That's going to help increase
your balance as well. So your going to go up on your toes and walk on your toes, and
then when you turn around, you're going to come back on your heels. Now go a little further
than I do. I don't have quite as much room, but you want to start off with 10-15, if that's
easy, then you can go a little further. Walking down on your toes, and coming back on your
heels. Now the next one is going to be a drag. This going to be a stretch and strengthening
at the same time. You just want to bring your foot back and drag it forward. That's straightening
everything out there, but it's also making me work those muscles a little bit. Just dragging
it forward. Drag it forward straight, and then you can also turn your foot in so you
get a little bit more on the outside there, and drag it forward that way. You can do that
about 10-15 times. You don't want it to be super painful, but you want to feel some tension
and feel like you are working those muscles. If those are easy, then you can step it up
a little bit. You can get some extra motion in there. We are going to use a step ladder
like we did for the plantar fasciitis, but it's kind of a step up from the plantar fasciitis.
So this allows you to get extra motion. So you are going to drop your heels all the way
down and then do a heel raise here. So your not just here at the ground, but your getting
that extra motion, that extra lift off. Once you get to where those feel easy, then you
can go to one foot. All the way down, all the way up. Same thing, you want to be able
to do 15-20 of those without getting super tired. Alright, so there you have it. Those
are exercises to strengthen your shins and ankles so you won't have shin splints anymore.
So if you liked it, click the like button, and if you want to check out some more videos
go to askdoctorjo.com And be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon!