Cures/prevention of 'shin splints'?

i have shin splints from playing football, we currently train on astroturf and i believe the hard ground contributed to this. can anyone advise me how to overcome this problem without missing out on much football?

Cures/prevention of 'shin splints'?
I am a gymnast with the same problem. All the advice that everyone said was to rest and stop practicing, but I didn't and my shins are still feeling better. You need to ice them before and after practice. If you don't get around to doing it before that is ok but you MUST do it after. Plus it numbs the pain away, which helps a lot! You need to masagase the area right next to the bone. This will be extremely painful but you have to do it to help it heal and make it feel better. Also this will sound stupid but put your heal on the ground and do toe taps with the balls of you feet and toes. After a while you will feel a slite ache in you muscles (which is good) because you are strengthening them. This is not the point at which you should stop the toe taps keep pushing yourself to do more. Also this will sound stupid too, but write the alphebet with your ankle. (This stretches out your shins.) Make sure that you stretch your shins out before you practice. Take pain meds. like Ibuprofen for pain and swelling. Also I have shin braces that I wear at every practice. I don't think that they seem to help much but if you wrap your shins in ace wrap that helps too. You can also tape them. When I am having a really bad shin day where it hurts just when I move my leg, I will tape them put the ace wrap on over the tape and then put my shin braces over that. I bought my shin braces at Walgreens so maybe you can pick up some if you want. They cost around $15 a piece. I hope this helps and I hope your shins feel better!
Reply:Pounding the ground will always subject your legs and feet to a variety of ailments.


Your best bet would be to get to a specialty sports shoe store, as the correct footwear is essential to healthy legs and feet!
Reply:The only thing that will get rid of them is REST. If you continue to exercise on shin splints you have a very high risk of a stress fracture which would mean 12 weeks in a plaster cast. When you return to training after the rest, make sure you have good fitting sports shoes/trainers on. Yes the hard ground has contributed to it so maybe thats something you could bring up with your trainer.

oleander