Do you have shin splints? Like a sharp pain right here on the front of your shin bone?
Are you worried that it might be a stress fracture or something worse? In my experience
the vast majority of shin splints are muscle and tendon related, but let's do a quick test so you
can get a better idea of what you're dealing with. If you actually have a stress fracture,
like a micro break in your shin bone, in your tibia, very often the pain will be localized,
meaning you could point to it with one finger. And the most important feature of a stress fracture
is the pain is often very constant throughout the day. With muscle and tendon issues, which seem to
be much, much more common when it comes to shin splints, the pain is often yo-yoing. It might
be worse in the morning and it's often worse when you start running, but after you run for a little
bit with the circulation and the heat the pain might go down. It might even go away completely,
but then it comes back later. The pain is also more generalized. So, instead of one finger,
it's often two, three, maybe even four fingers in terms of where you feel it. But that yo-yo pattern
of coming, going, worse, better, this is very, very indicative of a muscle tendon issue. When
it comes to shin splints, the vast majority of the time it's a pretty minor condition. Within two to
six weeks you can usually get over it. The biggest risk of getting shin splints is actually losing
momentum with your new fitness routine. That is often what caused the shin splints in the first
place. My hope is that we can help you heal this really quickly, get you back on the road, back to
doing what you love quickly. Hey my name is Lucas, I am a yoga teacher. Nobody gets shin splints
in the yoga room, but people come to yoga when they're taking a break from the road to heal from
shin splints. I've had shin splints myself two, three different times in the past. Hopefully what
I've learned can be helpful for you. In this video we'll talk about the anatomy of shin splints,
we'll talk about why they happen, most importantly we'll talk about how to heal them. A quick
disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor. If you suspect that you have a stress fracture,
osteoporosis, nerve condition, please err on the side of caution. This is for educational purposes
only. Go see a doctor. If you'd like to skip forward to the exercises I always put a PDF link
down below where you can see everything. Let's start off talking about the anatomy of your shin
and shin splints. Your shin bone is actually your tibia. We have two bones of our lower leg and your
tibia is this one in the front that we refer to as your shin. And the medical name for shin splints
is medial, so the inside, tibial, your tibia, stress syndrome. Medial tibial stress syndrome.
And this is a general term to refer to all of these conditions. Could it be a stress fracture?
Possibly, but probably not. Could it be the lining around your bone, which some people theorize,
it's called your periosteum? Possibly. Could it be the muscles and/or tendons that attach
or pass near the shin? Very, very likely, and this is where we'll put our focus today. Now,
your lower leg is surprisingly complex. Some people might say there's 20 or even more muscles.
A bunch of them are really, really small, but the big culprits here, the usual suspects are your
anterior tibialis and its tendon, which attaches at the shin bone, your posterior tibialis,
and then also your patellar tendon, which comes down on the top, probably less likely. Very often
it's that anterior or posterior tib, but it could potentially be any or multiple muscles
and/or tendons in your lower leg. Here's the thing that you need to understand, shin splints there
are two factors that are almost always at play when somebody gets shin splints. The first one
is running or jumping of some kind and the second one is something new. It could be a new exercise
routine, it could be a new pair of shoes, it could be a new distance, it could be a new level
of intensity, it could be that you were running on a treadmill and then you went to pavement,
or you were on pavement and then you went to a track, something changed. It's usually running
and jumping and then something new. Here's what happens: when you do something new your muscles
they respond very, very quickly to stimuli. That doesn't mean that you can bulk up like a
bodybuilder overnight, but it does mean that very small, very functional adaptive changes can happen
to the musculature of your lower leg literally within a couple of weeks. If you start a new
running, or jumping, or plyometrics routine, three weeks into it, six weeks into it, your legs, from
a muscle standpoint, can really be a lot stronger, you can really feel that power. However, your
tendons, and your ligaments, and cartilage, those connective tissues they take a lot longer to catch
up. Why? They're poorly vascularized. Sometimes they're avascular, they don't have a really
great circulation, they're slower moving, they're also stronger. That's the benefit. The downside
is they take longer to adapt. So your muscles might be ready to roll in three to six weeks,
but your tendons, they might take three months, six months. It's very, very common that this is
why shin splints will kick in when you're into a new routine. So then the question is, if we have
a tendon that's inflamed, tendonitis, if we have a muscle that's overworked or damaged, a muscle
strain, what can we do to fix it? As soon as you go online you'll find a whole bunch of information
that's focused on pain relief. Pain relief is not healing, this is really important. If you put your
shins on ice, will the pain go away? Yes, but you'll also reduce the circulation - bad idea. If
you use compression socks or a compression sleeve, will the pain go away? It'll at least go down, but
again, that's going to reduce circulation. Same thing with elevation, ibuprofen, this is going
to block inflammation, that's a healing response. Almost all of these things that remove pain don't
have anything to do with healing in the best case. In the worst case, they'll actually slow down your
healing process. With shin splints pain relief is a really bad approach because the pain is not
that bad to begin with. Usually just when you're doing your exercise. The one piece of popular
advice that you'll find which is appropriate is rest, but I would swap out rest and I would just
say slow down. Remember we talked about before these two components that are usually present with
shin splints - one is running or jumping and the second is something new. What if I said instead of
resting, just slow down? And instead of something new, do whatever was old? Switch back to your
old pair of running shoes, switch back to your treadmill instead of the blacktop, switch back
to your walking instead of your running, whatever it is that you introduced that was new. What if
during this healing period, let's call it two to eight weeks, you revert back to slower and doing
what you were doing before? This can be a very, very simple way to heal. The other thing is that
you'll find people trying to fix shin splints. They'll be taking spoons and digging them
into their tissues, they're using Theraguns and percussive therapy devices to blast those tissues,
they're using elbows and manual therapy, they're using deep stretches multiple times throughout the
day. When muscles are damaged, when tendons are inflamed, they don't respond well to this type
of treatment, they're simply going to get worse. Your condition should get better, to get better.
Inflaming and bruising yourself with aggressive therapies, that's simply going to exacerbate the
condition. Muscles heal relatively quickly, these tendons are going to take some time, and while
they're healing they do need to be mobilized and they do need some gentle load, some gentle stress.
The best way to approach this from a corrective exercise perspective, especially during the first
couple of weeks, is with isometric holds. So we'll take our muscles into their full range of motion,
and then we'll load them very gently and hold it, so the movement is really limited and the tendons
are loaded in a very controlled way. And then eventually, as time goes on, you can get back to
the activities that you love. Just remember that your connective tissues need time to get caught up
to your muscle tissues. Let's take a look at some exercises you can do at home. I'd like to show you
some unusual exercises you can do, some corrective exercises to help to accelerate that healing
process for muscle and tendon issues that are causing your shin splints. If you have a mobility,
a stretching routine that works for you, as long as it's light stretching, go for it. If you have
a self-massage technique, as long as it's light massage, go for it. Just remember we don't want
to do hardcore deep stretching, and we don't want to use percussive therapy, or really aggressive
manual therapy. Keep it really light. These practices I'll share with you right now are
designed to load the muscles of our lower leg. When those muscles are loaded in a contracted
state it also helps to gently load and stress the tendons, specifically our anterior tibialis,
posterior tibialis, soleus and gastroc, some of the other smaller players too, but we'll focus on
the big ones. Just remember your back leg should be straight and strong but with a very moderate
intensity, four out of five intensity at the very most. And I'll keep a chair in front of me just in
case I need it for balance. We'll do 20 seconds on each leg, and then we'll switch to the second
version. I'll walk you through it right now. So, I'll stand with my feet about as wide as my hips,
I'll lean forward, I'll hinge forward, and place my hands for balance. I'll lunge my right leg back
but not very far, it's about two feet behind me, and from here I'll find my balance by kicking back
and straightening my leg completely. I'd like you to feel four out of five intensity. My heel
is lifted and I'm in a very gentle, what I'll call a dorsi lunge. And, if you're comfortable,
lift your arms like an airplane, gaze forward, and again kick back into the heel. If you're
feeling wobbly, or if you're feeling unstable in that knee, place your fingertips or your hands,
no problem there for support. Kick back through your heel, your back leg should be engaged. If
you feel a little bit of trembling in the back leg, that's okay. We're at 20 seconds, just don't
overdo it. Release and shake it out. Switch legs. I'll hinge forward, place my hands down, step my
left leg back a small step, and again, kick back through that heel. You should feel both a stretch
and a gentle loading of your lower leg here on the back. I'll start my timer and I'll lift my
heart slowly. If you can, airplane your arms, straighten your back leg completely, breathe in
and out through your nose here. If it's too much on your front leg, if you're feeling unstable, you
could use fingertips or place your hands. But if you're okay, come up to balance, and breathe here.
Good. Put your hands down, step your leg back, and shake it out. Now, the next version,
plantar lunge, we'll do the same thing but with our toe pointed. The balance is a little funny
here, so don't be afraid to use the chair. Hinge at your hips, place your hands down,
step your right leg back, but this time point your toes, you're on the top of your foot. And again,
take a smaller stance if you need to. Gently come up and again you'll feel a little bit
wobbly here. As soon as you can straighten your back leg all the way, press down into
the top of your back foot, lengthen through your spine, gaze forward, breathe through your nose.
Good. Place your hands down, step back, switch legs, shake it out. Left leg back,
plantar flexion in my back ankle, I'll point my toes, and pause here. Remember you can absolutely,
timer is going, practice with your hands on top of the stool,
but if you feel comfortable you might lift up. Just make sure you're getting four out of
five intensity on that back leg, that's the most important thing. If it doesn't happen sometimes
you might find that by leaning forward you can actually get a better load on that back leg.
Good. Place your hands down, step back, and shake it out. Essentially, what we're working on here is
dorsiflexion of our ankle and plantar flexion of our ankle under load. Use the stool or the chair,
or don't. If you just do those four rounds a couple of times per day that can really help
to encourage the healing process. I hope you found that video helpful. Remember what we
talked about firstly, number one slow down, and number two go back to whatever you were
doing before the new thing came in. So if you were on a treadmill and you went to the road,
go back to the treadmill. If you switched shoes, go back to your old shoes, at least during this
period of healing, for two, six, eight weeks at the most. Try out this dorsi and plantar lunge,
see if they help. And again, if you have some simple mobilization exercises that are helpful
for you, do them. Just remember that you need to give your connective tissues time to get caught
up to your muscles. If you've enjoyed this video, click subscribe down below. I release
science-based yoga and injury videos once a week. If you would like to find my teaching calendar,
it's at yogabody.com. I have online and offline courses around the world. And lastly,
if you have questions or suggestions for future videos, I'd love to hear
from you down in the comments below. Thanks so much and we'll see you in the next video.