The answer? Not necessarily. The part that interested me was a response that indicated calf tightness could be the culprit in shin tightness. Sounds about right. Charlie Horse and I are best friends. There were some great stretches explained through the thread that I'll get to in a minute.
First, though, I had one more question. Why was I suddenly experiencing so much pain when I wasn't doing anything differently than when I ran during swim season?
DING DING! That's the problem. Of course. I should have known. Swimming is always the problem. It made perfect sense, and a few more clicks through Google yielded a thread that confirmed my suspicions.
'shin pain from breaststroke kick'
Essentially, as a breaststroker, I did experience the same kind of shin pain as the person who posted the question. However, the other aspects of swimming kept my muscles stretched and loose enough to run. When I stopped the swimming (a zero-impact sport) and focused solely on running (high-impact), I was no longer loosening up although I was exposing my muscles to more trauma.
So. I need to ice more and really stretch.
I was still a little iffy about running on a hard surface today, so I stuck to the elliptical and stretched forrrreverrrr.
Pre-workout I traced the ABCs with each foot, over and over. It's a little more challenging than you'd expect! I also did calf/toe raises.
Post-workout I did calf/toe raises and tried the rolling pin suggested in the thread- just with a soft medicine ball instead of a rolling pin! I also did the ABCs again and general stretching, making sure to get my quads too!
I don't want to count my chickens, but my legs felt great all day. They're a little tight now, but that's because I've been cooped up doing homework for too long! Tomorrow's definitely the day for an outdoor run!
Here are a couple more articles I discovered!
I was especially interested in the part about muscle tension and its effect on circulation--
Check it out!
Curiously, I've been having the same pains in my shins when I run. I'm not a swimmer, but I've been running distance for as long as I can remember on account of my heart condition. I didn't used to like running because I always felt like it was an obligation to keep my heart healthy, but recently I've learned to enjoy it because I just listen to music and get to observe the beauty in the world.
ReplyDeleteGo figure... just as I start to appreciate running, my legs start getting searing pain! Story of my life, but I digress.
Reading this post is reassuring however, because perhaps if I vary the stretches I do pre and post-run, then my shin pains will go away. However, I am pretty certain mine are shin splints because I went 6 months ago and that's what the doctors told me. They went away for awhile, but then I started running again and the pain returned, which is eerily similar to 6 months ago!
Hopefully your legs are doing better than mine! =)