Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

When I started exercising, I was walking and running outdoors on sidewalks and roads. I had incredible pain in my shins (the muscle on the lower front of my leg). I also had pain under my feet in the arch. I actually went to a podiatrist, who wrapped my foot and told me to ice it regularly. It didn’t help.

The pain would go away when I stopped exercising for a week or so, but would come back every time I’d start again. I was really frustrated because the doctor wasn’t any help and every article that I read about this kind of pain gave me the following useless advice:

• Stretch: They’d tell me to stretch, but didn’t tell me how.
• Ice: Ice helps reduce the swelling when you’re injured, but what I really needed was to learn how not to get injured in the first place.
• Change the Type of Exercise: I was really poor and the only options available to me at the time were walking and running. Both hurt me.
• Wrap It: The doctor showed me how to wrap my foot, but it didn’t prevent me from injuring myself.
• Rest: Yeah, rest works, but EVERY time I started up again, the pain came back.
• Lose Weight: A lot of the articles told me to lose weight because extra poundage caused problems. I remember reading that thinking, “No kidding? Why do you think I’m running and walking in the first place!”

Finally, Runner’s World had a small, tiny article that was an “Ask the Doctor” type of thing. It was so small I could have missed it, but luckily, I found it. The space was limited, so the doctor answered the shin splint question with ONE stretch that I could do to solve the problem. That and a recommendation to see a doctor was all the article contained. Not even a picture.

After following the directions for a week, I noticed a definite improvement in that foot and my shins. Now, I swear by this stretch. I do it before and after every run, walk and especially if I’m playing Dance Dance Revolution. This website has a description of the stretch:

• Exercise & Muscle Directory – Step Straight Leg Calf Stretch

My additional thoughts:

• Lower your heel over the edge of a step and lift your toes.
• Make sure you hold onto something so that you don’t slip and hurt yourself.
• Lowering your foot stretches your calf muscle and lifting your toe stretches your shin.
• You can bend the knee of the stretching leg and it will deepen the stretch.
• Hold the stretch for 20 seconds on each leg.
• Be careful. DO NOT bounce! It’s really easy to lose your balance on the step and REALLY hurt yourself.