although the words "in my experience" coming from a 19 year old might
bring a wry smile to the faces of some...
i work for aussie rules football team, and one of my players came to
me complaining of 'shin splints'. now, i was aware that 'shin splints'
is a rather broad term and can mean different things to different
people, so i decided to have a peek anyway and see what i could learn.
the basic result was that the pain came on shortly after commencing
physical activity and took up to a few hours to ease after stopping
the activity (but obviously not as long to ease when the activity was
ceased earlier). the pain was aggravated on active plantarflexion,
isometric contraction of plantarflexors, and nor present on passive
plantarflexion.
i spoke to one of my colleagues at uni (a qualified podiatrist with 15
years clinical experience who has decided to make a career chaneg -
and is now in second year physio) about this, and if he had any
recommendations. he showed me a type of taping which is essentially a
few stirrup-like strips, from the level of insertion of the affected
muscle, over a low-dye base. (there's a little more too it, but that's
put nice and simply).
i went back to my player, applied this taping technique, and as if by
miracle the pain did not occur during training. so i repeated this
method for training sessions and games and he had no complaints.
now there is cause here for some of you to say "the problem may have
resolved prior to the first taping, and so there was no problem
present for the tape to be acting on". well, some training nights when
i wasn't able to be there, he played without the tape, and experienced
these problems. so that kinda supports it effectiveness.
one of my friends also works for a junior footy team, and two weeks
ago, when she was unable to be at the game, i filled in for her. one
of her players was also complaining of 'shin splints'. after a quick
examination (yeilding a similar pattern to my player), i felt that
attempting this same technique on him was justified... and it worked
brilliantly! he didn't complain of the problem at all during or after
the game. i think he was more amazed than anyone.
so, although this may not be helping the condition in the long-run, it
seemed to help these individuals to the extent that they could play a
full game pain-free. both of these individuals were complaining of
tibialis posterior pain, and so i'm eager to find an athlete with
tibialis anterior 'shin splints' to see if they'll let me attempt the
same technique on them.
this message was proudly brought to you by ...
luke harris of benzene - http://benzene.cjb.net/
prefer email sent to me at [log in to unmask]
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