All-Star Shin Splints

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Haha it's okay! But I know that dilemma .. There's no way to really rest during the season :-/ good luck though @goldengirls


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How long can shin splints last? CP has been working her punch front a bit much these days and is suffering!
 
How long can shin splints last? CP has been working her punch front a bit much these days and is suffering!
Unfortunately, they'll stay until you let them heal. I got them the same way your CP did with punch fronts and they didn't get better until I stopped working on them for 1-2 weeks. They're a huge pain in the butt!!
 
ugh I've never had them until this season actually. It's only with jumps and tumbling, when I run I am fine. So strange. We sometimes use dead mat for competitions, but we practice at our college spring floor and go to quite a few all star competitions so we compete on spring even though we're collegiate. (Spoiled,I know!) Even if I take it easy, they always seem to reappear! Ice and advil, I feel like it is about all you can do...
 
I got them really bad during field hockey season, what helped me was having someone push my toes down to the floor when i was sitting in a pike position on the ground. it helped stretch out the muscles at the bottom of my shins, which is where it hurt the most.
 
Taping and icing only dull the symptoms. I had them playing lacrosse in college. Only when I stopped playing did mine finally go away. I still get them now and then when I go through "I want to exercise or I can run on a treadmill" phases. Luckily thoses phases never lasts long for me.
 
When I was in high school I would use PK5 for shin splints. I'm not sure where we got it or if it still exists, but worth a try for those that get them. Its a roll on stick type thing. Shoes were the biggest factor with mine. Don't run in cheer shoes, and find a good running pair that works for you! It took me years to realize that Nike's caused a lot of my pain. I avoid all of those cute nike shoes now and go for different brands.
 
Warning for shin splints: please be careful. My senior year of high school when I was at the peak of my tumbling skill, doing both all star and high school I began have "shin splints". The doctor diagnosed them as such and I treated them as such. But when months passed and my pain was getting worse, I knew something was wrong. X-rays came up clean. Then I got an MRI and it lit up like a Christmas tree. Multiple stress fractures from overuse in each leg. I had a boot on my right leg and was out of tumbling for 3 months. I am not the only person I've cheered with that this has happened to. If you/your CP is having shin pain, take it easy just in case because you never know if it could be something worse!


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I had severe shin splints from field hockey. I just iced, taped and ate ibuprofen like candy. They only got worse. It got so bad I couldn't walk normal and I would lay in bed and cry because they ached so badly. Finally my coach put an end to it and I had to sit out the last month of my senior year field hockey season. It was terrible but they healed pretty quickly once I rested them.
 
Update: I really think it is a combo of overuse and wearing "cute" but unsupportive shoes to school. We did a trial. She had cheer last night (a rework pyramid practice so not a bunch of tumbling). She did each of her passes once. No pain. She wore her runners with support. No pain. She put on shoes with no support. Pain.

So, taking her to the doctor to have her arch checked out. Maybe she needs more support/insole in her shoes on an ongoing basis but in the meantime, resting up a bit before next week's competition.

Thank you all so very much for all your insight, super helpful!
 
CP had/has shin splints. Please make sure she has support in her shoes. Lovely child of mine said nothing until one day she couldn't bear weight. Was diagnosed with shin splints and put into a boot. She still cheered both football /basketball/competition and ended up in a cast for 8 weeks. She still has pain because she pretty much refuses to rest.
 
Shin splints are the worst! When I was training for my half marathon I started to get them really bad in the first few weeks of training, but I found an exercise that worked for me that helped prevent them. Sit in a pike and flex your toes as hard as you can and then point your toes are hard as you can. Make sure you're doing this slowly and painfully! I call them flex points lol. I try to make my athletes do around 100 a day spread out throughout the day. Once I started doing them regularly, I never had shin problems again to this day!
 
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