First things first, if you're experiencing shin pain, in order to help rehab it you'll need to rest. It's annoying, I know, but if you don't rest it becomes very difficult to recover. Not impossible, but if you're not training for something, I recommend rest. Doing these exercises, you should start to feel better (as long as you rest) in about a week, and the pain should decrease to nothing from there. Keep in mind that the more severe the pain, the longer the recovery is going to be.
Toe Walking: This is super simple, all you have to do is pretend like you're wearing stilettos and walk around on only your toes. Told you: super simple. This exercise is meant to help strengthen all the little tiny muscles in your foot. There is no set amount of time to do this exercise. My rule of thumb is to go until you feel fatigue, and then stop. Remember, all of this is meant to be like rehab - so you want to reach fatigue, not exhaustion. Make sure you give your injury plenty of rest between sets. This is meant to strengthen muscles and increase stability. To get the most out of the exercise you should do this barefoot, so that your muscles are working to stabilize your foot, not your shoe. However, in the beginning, you may be in too much pain to do this barefoot. Start with shoes if you need to, and then progress to barefoot.
Heel Walking: Similar to the toe walking, but you use only your heels (duh). WARNING: This may make you look like a penguin. Same rules apply here as with toe walking, work only until fatigue, take rests when you need to, and work until you can do this barefoot (then keep working at it).
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| She makes it look cool |
Toe Towel Crunches: Lay a small towel out flat on the floor (dish towels are perfect for this exercise). Then use your toes to pull the towel towards you, without picking it up off the floor. It'll get all scrunched up under your foot, so you'll have to readjust as you go. When this becomes easy for you, start adding weight to the towel by placing something on the far end of it. Keep in mind that your toes aren't the strongest muscles in your body, so start by adding only a pound at a time.
Marble Pick-up: Technically this doesn't have to be done with marbles, it can be done with anything small-ish. All you have to do is spread the marbles out on the floor and then pick them up with your toes and place then in a cup (or bowl or whatever). Easy peas-y.
Resisted Foot Inversion and Eversion: This one may be more difficult to do at home if you don't have a resistance band. You can also do them with the cable machines if you have access to those. For both of these exercises, the band or cable should be placed around the ball of your foot. For foot inversion you should pull your toes "in", so that if you're standing, your foot points towards your other foot, with the resistance pulling in the opposite direction. For foot eversion, you should pull your toes away from your body so they point outwards.
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Massages: When you have shin splints, it's very common to have stiffness in the morning and achiness in the evening. Hopefully, as you progress with these exercises you will feel less achiness, but massages can help. When you are feeling stiff, but have no pain, you can do a calf and foot massage. This will help increase blood flow, which will help with the healing and to decrease the stiffness. You can also try rolling your foot or calf on a tennis ball if massages aren't really your thing. Massages also help to decrease pain. When you are feeling achy, you can do an ice massage on your shins to decrease the pain. Fill some paper cups halfway with ice and then put them in the freezer. When they are frozen, you rip off the top part of the paper cup and rub it on your shins for about 10-15 min. If you feel tingling in your toes, time to stop.
Toe/ Foot/ Ankle Stretches: These are meant to help more with the stiffness. I would recommend doing these in the morning - once before the massage, and once after the massage. Try pulling your toes towards you, and then add the foot. Also, try curling your toes under your foot. Stretches can also help with pain, but if you are feeling achy, I recommend caution: start very light with the stretches.
So, once you're pain free and you have super strong toe muscles (you're welcome for your jacked monkey feet), it's time to go back to running (or whatever it is that gave you the pain in the first place). So go read that other post on how to prevent shin splints, cause once you've had them once, you're prone to getting them again. PLUS, if you just stop and go straight back to what you were doing before, are you gonna be surprised when you get exactly what you got before?
Please keep in mind that "shin splints" is a term that covers all pain in the shins. So, if you are doing these exercises, and also resting, and you don't notice a decrease in your pain within two weeks, I would recommend you see your doctor - because you may have something more serious than some over-used muscles. If you are resting properly you should notice continual decrease in your pain levels. So if you see a decrease at first and then nothing for a while, that also would be a sign you need something extra in your treatment.
**NOTE: This post is meant to be informative and educational. While I do think that these exercises are useful in decreasing shin pain and can be very rehabilitative (is that a word?), this post is not meant to replace care from a therapist or a doctor.**
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