he said it's a common misconception and actually the two have nothing to do with one another. having shin splints makes a runner no more or less likely to have a stress fracture, and vice versa.
i've always been told that shin splints are one of the first stops on a continuum that leads to stress reactions and, ultimately, stress fractures.
I was told back in my college days(four years ago) that shins splints were the muscle tearing away from the bone on your tibia. So shin splints are muscle damage. And that a stress fracture is a fracture in your tibia. And that they can be related because the muscle tearing away from the bone makes the bone more likely to fracture because the muscle isn't absorbing the shock like it did when that muscle was fully attached to the bone. This causes the bone to absorb the shock, which makes it more likely to fracture.
That could be totally, wrong, but that's how I understood it from the medical staff that treated me through both shin splint and a stress fracture of my lower tibia.
Now, it is possible to get a stress fracture in any bone. But 99% of the time runners get them in the thinest part of the tibia(their shin)
BA wrote:
i've always been told that shin splints are one of the first stops on a continuum that leads to stress reactions and, ultimately, stress fractures.
Why do you listen to idiots?
malmo wrote:
BA wrote:i've always been told that shin splints are one of the first stops on a continuum that leads to stress reactions and, ultimately, stress fractures.
Why do you listen to idiots?
what are your thoughts, malmo?
Not a doctor wrote:
I was told back in my college days(four years ago) that shins splints were the muscle tearing away from the bone on your tibia. So shin splints are muscle damage. And that a stress fracture is a fracture in your tibia. And that they can be related because the muscle tearing away from the bone makes the bone more likely to fracture because the muscle isn't absorbing the shock like it did when that muscle was fully attached to the bone. This causes the bone to absorb the shock, which makes it more likely to fracture.
That could be totally, wrong, but that's how I understood it from the medical staff that treated me through both shin splint and a stress fracture of my lower tibia.
Now, it is possible to get a stress fracture in any bone. But 99% of the time runners get them in the thinest part of the tibia(their shin)
this is exactly what i was told when i got my first stress fracture, nearly word for word. the fact that there are so many theories on what causes SFX shows that there is no conclusive evidence. when you have a heart attack, there is one way they fix it at the ER, time and time again. you go to a doctor for SFX, and you'll hear many different reasons:
mileage
rest
intensity
diet
biomechanics
old shoes
wrong shoes
it leads me to believe no one knows what is going on.
BA wrote:
i've always been told that shin splints are one of the first stops on a continuum that leads to stress reactions and, ultimately, stress fractures.
People mistakenly believe that they have shin splints when they are actually feeling the early warning signs of stress fractures. When they are later diagnosed with stress fractures, they figure that their shin splints turned into stress fractures. In reality, they never had shin splints at all.
So are we talking about bone pain vs. muscle pain? I've never been all that clear on what exactly shin splints are. For the record I've had some terrible shin splints in the sense of muscle pain but never a stress fracture.
"Shin splints" is used to describe many pains in or near the shin so is not a precise or useful term.
Tom
Exactly. The vagueness is not with stress fractures, but shin splints. Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome (MTSS) is another vague catch-all.
Not a doctor wrote:
I was told back in my college days(four years ago) that shins splints were the muscle tearing away from the bone on your tibia. So shin splints are muscle damage. And that a stress fracture is a fracture in your tibia. And that they can be related because the muscle tearing away from the bone makes the bone more likely to fracture because the muscle isn't absorbing the shock like it did when that muscle was fully attached to the bone. This causes the bone to absorb the shock, which makes it more likely to fracture.
That could be totally, wrong, but that's how I understood it from the medical staff that treated me through both shin splint and a stress fracture of my lower tibia.
Now, it is possible to get a stress fracture in any bone. But 99% of the time runners get them in the thinest part of the tibia(their shin)
pretty much hit the nail on the head, stress fracture is when enough stress(force) is continually applied to the same part of a bone that it begins to fracture. Shin splints is when the muscle on the front of your shin is pulled enough that it starts coming apart at the tendon, this can result in a torn tendon (where the tendon meets the tibia) is strong/the bone is weak, a stress fracture where the two meet because of the continual stress on that area.
Shin splits are Anterior tibial tendonitis. The tendon that is on the front of the leg very close to the shin bone, so many people believe their shin hurts but in reality it is the anterior tibial tendon.
http://patientsites.com/media/img/129/leg_shinsplints_anatomy02.jpg
http://www.arthritis-treatment-and-relief.com/anterior-tibial-tendonitis.html
technically it's more a myofasciitis. The actual tendon inserts in the foot. The myofacial tissue is anchored to the tibia.
Technically any chronic inflammation can locally demineralize the bone. Classically this is seen in rheumatoid arthritis where the bones around the affected joints demonstrates localized osteopenia ("osteoporosis"). So in this way chronic shin splints may predispose you to a stress fracture.
Did the doctor offer any evidence?
Whether or not shin splints "lead" to stress fractures, it seems to me pretty likely that both of them result from running in a manner that exposes your lower legs to excess pounding/excess force. So even if they are not on the same continuum, I suspect they are strongly positively correlated.
Or is the doctor saying that's not the case? Based on what? (If there's one thing I've learned from writing a book about running form, it's that most doctors - not all - don't understand the first thing about running form or injuries, nor are they curious. They are content to repeat what they learned in school decades ago.)
