with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another tryi

Shin splints - what a descriptive phrase! It conjures up images of a shattered bone loose in your leg. As descriptive as that is, and that *is* how it feels when you have the condition, in fact that isn't what's happening at all.

The term shin splints refers to multiple possible conditions, and although in severe cases a stress fracture of the bone is possible, in most cases the condition will be concerning the muscles and tendons around the shin bone.

It's a condition affecting all types of sports, and for runners it is almost an inevitability, because the body is not prepared to take the pounding that comes from running unless it is properly conditioned.

When I turned 40 in 2006 I decided I would run the London Marathon to mark the occasion. I knew this would be a challenge as I was so unfit, and there have been plenty of times when I told myself what a stupid challenge it had been! None more so than when I first had shin splints.

I had got a good ten weeks into my training when I got a tweak in my groin muscle, ironically not sustained through running! I took a couple of weeks off, and when I had got back into my stride so to speak, I noticed aches in my left lower leg. I put it down to the aches of getting fit and carried on. Once the ache turned into the kind of sharp pain I would associate with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another tryin

fracture of the bone is possible, in most cases the condition will be concerning the muscles and tendons around the shin bone.

It's a condition affecting all types of sports, and for runners it is almost an inevitability, because the body is not prepared to take the pounding that comes from running unless it is properly conditioned.

When I turned 40 in 2006 I decided I would run the London Marathon to mark the occasion. I knew this would be a challenge as I was so unfit, and there have been plenty of times when I told myself what a stupid challenge it had been! None more so than when I first had shin splints.

I had got a good ten weeks into my training when I got a tweak in my groin muscle, ironically not sustained through running! I took a couple of weeks off, and when I had got back into my stride so to speak, I noticed aches in my left lower leg. I put it down to the aches of getting fit and carried on. Once the ache turned into the kind of sharp pain I would associate with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another tryi

ned.

When I turned 40 in 2006 I decided I would run the London Marathon to mark the occasion. I knew this would be a challenge as I was so unfit, and there have been plenty of times when I told myself what a stupid challenge it had been! None more so than when I first had shin splints.

I had got a good ten weeks into my training when I got a tweak in my groin muscle, ironically not sustained through running! I took a couple of weeks off, and when I had got back into my stride so to speak, I noticed aches in my left lower leg. I put it down to the aches of getting fit and carried on. Once the ache turned into the kind of sharp pain I would associate with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another tryi

raining when I got a tweak in my groin muscle, ironically not sustained through running! I took a couple of weeks off, and when I had got back into my stride so to speak, I noticed aches in my left lower leg. I put it down to the aches of getting fit and carried on. Once the ache turned into the kind of sharp pain I would associate with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another tryi

with the term 'shin splints', I decided I needed to research the issue.

There is a bucket load of information available online, but as is the case with most health issues, there is almost too much information! A lot of it contradicts itself, and what you do find is fragmented, so you end up flitting from one site to another trying to piece it all together.

Being an online writer and publisher, it didn't take me long to realise that what I needed was the kind of thing I could write myself, with the facts presented simply and efficiently, so I proceeded to write my Coffee Shop Guide to Shin Splints.

In this I could present the information about shin splints, what causes them, how to treat them, and better still how to prevent them in the first place!

It may sound glib to say that to heal and prevent shin splints, you simply address the causes and then stop doing those causes, but in fact that is pretty much *all* it takes to do it!

There can be one or more causes, and any combination, but it only needs a few steps to correct the issues, and I can honestly say that I have now left shin splints in the past for good!