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Does Wrapping A Shin Splint Help?

Shin splint1 is a general term to explain pain in the lower leg area and it takes place often below your knee either on front outer part of your leg i.e. anterior shin splints or inside of your leg i.e. medial shin splints. Especially, the problem is common among many beginner runners or seasoned runners, as they either do not create enough mileage or change the workout regimen in an abrupt way. Other reasons for the problem include suddenly addition of mileage or switching from jogging on flat areas to hilly regions.

Does Wrapping A Shin Splint Help?

Does Wrapping A Shin Splint Help?

Yes, wrapping does help when you have shin splints. In case you continue with running or your physical exercise, it is essential for you to wrap the affected leg area properly before you should move out. For this, you may use any ace bandage or a tape by starting from above portion of your ankle to below area of your knee. You have to wrap your knee until your pain goes away completely and it often requires 3 weeks to 6 weeks period. Wrapping is helpful in your shin splints because of the fact that it binds the tendons up in opposition to the shin shaft to avoid tension or stress.

Other Steps To Consider With Wrapping

However, even though wrapping is helpful in dealing with your shin splints condition, but only doing it is not enough to overcome your problem. Instead, you have to take other steps, as we have discussed here.

  • Involve in any cross-training activity for some time to allow healing of your shin. These include swimming in a pool or ride a bike.
  • When you start with running again, you have to increase your speed/mileage slowly i.e. your mileage should not exceed 10percent in every week.
  • Make sure of wearing appropriate sports shoes or running shoes to match perfectly with the type of your foot. One of the best ways in this case is to keep two different pairs of shoes and wear them on an alternate basis to vary the level of stress experienced by your legs. Along with this, if you are an overpronator, you should choose for motion-controlling footwear, while severe overpronator should opt for orthotic shoes.
  • Avoid walking or running on hard surfaces or hilly areas until and unless you overcome from the shin pain completely. Later on, if you want you may introduce them in a gradual way to avoid any recurrence.
  • If you run or walk on roads by using an obvious camber, you should do so and return by following the same side of the road. In the same manner, you should switch directions while you run on any racetrack.
  • If you are often prone to develop shin splints, you have to stretch the Achilles and calf muscles on a regular basis to come up with an excellent preventative measure.

Major Reasons of Shin Splints2

Shin splints take place due to overstraining of muscles, where they remain attach to the skin. A prime cause in this case is overtraining or overuse related to poor biomechanics of your leg and feet. Other causes and details include-

  • Overloading Or Overtraining
  • Increase your physical training too much faster
  • Running on any angled or hard surface
  • Insufficient rest among various loads
  • Biomechanical
  • Oversupination and overpronation of your feet
  • Reduction in flexibility at the ankle joint
  • Dynamic alignment i.e. poor muscular control among hip, leg and knee
  • Poor control of your buttock during stance phase
  • Hamstrings and tight calf muscles
  • Weak foot arch muscles and quadriceps

Along with this, wearing inappropriate sports shoes or gym shoes may cause you shin splints problem in the near future.

Conclusion

To conclude, we should say that wrapping the affected i.e. pain area is helpful to overcome the problem of shin splints. However, it is essential for you to follow other important steps, so that pain goes away in relatively less possible span of time or it cannot relapse in future.

References:

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Team PainAssist
Team PainAssist
Written, Edited or Reviewed By: Team PainAssist, Pain Assist Inc. This article does not provide medical advice. See disclaimer
Last Modified On:November 23, 2020

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