Anterior Shin Splints

I've been doing running and spinning recently too, but I've got the opposite problem - pain on the front inside of my shins. I think my feet are rolling out while yours are rolling in. My short-term solution is to rest and apply ice, but if it keeps up I'm going to buy new shoes from a store with expert staff. If that doesn't fix it I'll try orthotics.

You might consider reversing the order of your run/weights routine. Typically people lift and then do cardio so that they hit the muscles hard, then hit the cardio system afterwards. Doing cardio first will likely detract from your lifting so your results won't be as great.

Then, you might consider not running and lifting legs on the same day (unless your run is a short warm-up session). That combo sounds like a recipe for injury to me, but if you're careful about it it might be OK.

A physical therapist might tell you to (1) rest your legs until it doesn't hurt anymore, (2) ice it when it hurts to speed recovery, (3) perform targeted exercises to strengthen that muscle connecting to your shin, (4) consider new shoes from a good running store (where they analyze gait) or orthodics to get yourself balanced.

For what it's worth, I think you should complain to your gym about not letting you use the bikes outside of a class. I'm a member at Lifetime Fitness in VA and they're really flexible about it. They even took two bikes out of the studio and put them in the general room specifically so that others could use them outside of class.

(Standard medical advice disclaimer applies.)

I also recently read that if your running form is poor your feet may be hitting the ground in front of your body instead of under it, causing a braking action. This can put undue stress on your shins. Be mindful next time you run to keep a comfortable lean forward so that you concentrate on horizontal motion and eliminate as much vertical as possible (i.e. no hopping up and down).

Source: http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=12224&sidebar=548&category...

Plunk down the copay!!!!

After 10 years of shin-muscle pain in other sports (started running only a year ago), often mistaken for or sometimes masked by plain old "shin splints," I finally went to the sports med doctor (triathlete) at my health plan and begged him to talk me out of the my self-diagnosis that I had compartment syndrome or else treat it. No surprise to me, I have "textbook CECS." And boy, it hurts, and 10 minutes into any run I have to stop, no matter the speed. If I walk, it goes away, but when I walk a race I'm passed by about 400 people and my 5k times are completely embarrassing, especially compared to my one-mile marker time (which is now under 10 minutes and so doesn't trigger the CECS so much). I was DNS at my first Oly (well, I did the sprint -- but walked that too) last week.

Doctor says he has great success with conservative treatment, and I don't want surgery, at least not at this point, and heck, my insurance may pay for sports massage as part of it ...

Compartment syndrome is not something you should mess with!!! It is an increase in pressure ( on nerves, muscles, arteries)/fluid/size and usually you can tell if one is larger - measure the circumference around your lower leg on both legs with a tape measure...if so, see a Doctor!

You should have your running form analzed AFTER you go to a sports med doctor. Shin splints typically occur form excess contraction of the anterior tibialis muscle, whihc happens with heel striking (picture how when your heel its first, your toe is up in the air...the anterior tibialis is what is pulling your toe/foot upwards). Yes, there may be some contribution due to tight calf muscles, but more likely it is your runnign form combined with doing your runnign on a treadmill. THe fix is to gradually improve your form to eliminate landing wiht your heel in front of your body (overstriking). Good running form requires minimal use of the anterior tibialis muscle. Pick up one of several good books on running form (Pose, Evolution, Chi, etc).

As a racewalker I've had to learn all sorts of ways to deal with outer shin pain, and while I don't know much about correcting form or anything to fix it with runners, I do have ways to alleviate the pain somewhat until you can fix whatever is causing it (though I would guess the treadmill isn't helping - do you have access to an indoor track?). A proper warm up, starting out slow, tends to help a lot with racewalkers, perhaps it would with runners as well. Tapping your toe fairly quickly 50+ times will provide a focused warm-up for that muscle. To stretch the muscle you can either kneel on the ground and pull up your knee, or lean against a wall as if doing a calf-stretch but with your toe extended out to the back (there are photos of these on racewalk.com if my descriptions are hard to follow). I also like to massage the area between warm-up and bulk of the workout. Finish your workout with another good stretch of that muscle and then come home and ice it with water frozen in a paper cup (peel back the paper as the ice melts). Try icing all the way down to the insertion point at the ankle since swelling there tends to increase inflamation of the entire muscle for me. Hope some of the tips work for you!

I had anterior shin splints earlier this year. I took a week off from running, lightened my mileage, bought Shin Ice and iced after every run for the next two weeks. They went away. Now, I make sure I stretch my calf's out and properly warm up the area with foot raises before a run. I'm convinced that this happened to me because I increased my mileage too quickly. Your body and muscles need some time to adjust to an increase in workload. Mileage before fitness = injury.