The roles flip for today's episode. I am the guest on the Healthy Runner Podcast and share my knowledge on shin splints. Causes, Treatments and Prevention tips. Shin splints is one of the most common shin complaints for runners so recognizing early symptoms and implementing the right treatment early is the best management. Duane was a great host and we cover a lot of great content. Click here for Duane's website Click here for Spark Physical Therapy FB page Click here for Sparkyourtraining Insta page To follow the podcast joint the facebook group Becoming a smarter runner click on the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/833137020455347/?ref=group_header To find Brodie on instagram head to: https://www.instagram.com/brodie.sharpe/ To work with Brodie Sharpe at The Running Breakthrough Clinic visit: https://breakthroughrunning.physio/
Expand your running knowledge, identify running misconceptions and become a faster, healthier, SMARTER runner. Let Brodie Sharpe become your new running guide as he teaches you powerful injury insights from his many years as a physiotherapist while also interviewing the best running gurus in the world. This is ideal for injured runners & runners looking for injury prevention and elevated performance. So, take full advantage by starting at season 1 where Brodie teaches you THE TOP PRINCIPLES TO OVERCOME ANY RUNNING INJURY and let’s begin your run smarter journey.
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Today's episode, talking shin splints with Dr. Dwayne Scotty. Welcome to the Run Smarter podcast, the podcast helping you overcome your current and future running injuries by educating and transforming you into a healthier, stronger and smarter runner. My name is Brodie Sharp. I am the guy to reach out to when you've finally decided enough is enough with your persistent running injuries. I'm a physiotherapist. the owner of the Breakthrough Running Clinic and your podcast host. I'm excited to bring you today's lesson and to add to your ever-growing running knowledge. Let's work together to overcome your running injuries, getting you to that starting line and finishing strong. So let's take it away. Doing something a little bit different this episode today I am a guest on another podcast I was the guest on the healthy runner podcast with Dr. Dwayne Scottie and so he'll be the host for today's episode and we came together and thought we would do a nice episode on Shin Splints pretty much because his audience would like to know more about it and I hadn't had an episode on this podcast done about Shin Splints yet so you guys need to know more about it. So thought we would come together put this episode on his podcast and put this episode of my podcast that way everyone benefits and we get to cross promote audiences as well so. This was my first Facebook live, Dwayne Scottie likes to do his episodes as a live interaction kind of thing so that's why throughout the podcast you'll hear him mention to tag comments and add comments and kind of this live. format which I wasn't used to but had a great time doing it and it's given me a couple of good ideas for the future endeavors of this podcast. So we dive into Shin Splints the causes treatments and prevention tips and by way of background Dwayne is a PT in the US is also a lecturer at a university there on manual therapy is one hell of a promoter he has all these. Posts and things that go up before the live and then afterwards he does a really good job of putting it up on the Facebook groups and on his website and on Instagram as well and I also picked up some great hosting tips as well cause he is a great host ask great questions and how formats the interview in a really good way so I've picked up a lot of good tips there. If you really like the information how Dwayne conducts himself you can find him on Facebook he has a Facebook page. Spark physical therapy which is his business he also has the website spark physical therapy and you can find him on Instagram. Spark your training and his podcast so his podcast is the healthy runner podcast jump on there have a listen I listened to one previously with Rachel can't remember her last name but it was talking about yoga and how yoga can benefit runners so that was a good episode as well. Jump on have a listen see what you think. And I'll take it away now. So, um, as I sign off here, you'll jump into Dwayne's episode. So let's take it away. You'll see like medical professionals that you can tell aren't runners. And they're the ones that will say, don't run. Why are you running for? If you're getting injured, let's do something else or let's, um, you know, try cycling or something. People just don't understand that runners want to run. They want to run as much as they can. And that's why they get injured in the first place, because they usually do too much. So here's the question. How do runners like us remain active, get stronger, and heal from injuries without being told to stop running and create a healthy life for ourselves so we can continue to hit PRs well into our 40s and 50s? This is the question and this podcast is the answer. My name is Dr. Dwayne Scottie, physical therapist, educator, and creator of Spark Physical Therapy. Welcome to the Healthy Runner Podcast. We are live. It is Monday night, which means it's Monday night Spark Live. And we have a very special guest for us tonight. We are talking about, do your shins hurt when you go for a run? So have you ever been on a run and wondered, why does the front of my leg hurt? Right, were you thinking to yourself, should I be running through this shin pain? So this can be common for a lot of new runners, especially, just starting out or experienced runners who are stepping up their training, they're adding that volume, they're adding some heavy duty mileage, or they're adding in lots of speed work. So that is why I'm super excited for tonight's episode to have a fellow podcaster and running physio all the way from Down Under as our special guest for a Monday night Spark Live show. So those of you who are hopping here on the live, just type in live and those watching the replay, just type in hashtag team replay. So I know you caught it. So our special guest today is actually coming to us across the globe where it's actually Tuesday morning for him. And so he's adding a little Tuesday morning spark for all his local folks. So Brody is the host of the Run Smarter podcast and owner of Breakthrough Running Clinic. And he has an expertise in helping runners. And we'll be sharing with us causes treatment, recovery, and prevention of shin splints. So you can finally get rid of them once and for all. So welcome Brody. Thanks, Dwayne. Thanks for the invite. So let's start out with our little dynamic warmup. So tell us who you are, where you're from and why do you like to run or work with runners? Uh, yeah. So like you said, my name is Brody. I'm from Melbourne, Australia and why I like what Well, I started off as a runner to start with and loved it just basically as it made me feel good getting out in nature and just love the feeling they gave me and then that sort of triggered a passion with treating runners as soon as I'd get a runner into the clinic and find out that they're a runner that like, I just got so excited and just wanted to talk about everything running. And so that passion kind of just elevated my physio game and then just took it from there. No, it's great. And How long have you been a physio? I graduated in 2012. So this would be my eighth year as a physio. Nice. And so for those of you in the States, uh, we are actually the only country in the world that calls our profession, physical therapy everywhere else in the world. We are called physiotherapist. Uh, so what is your running background, Brody? Um, so I started off running after. getting home from a six month trip and I was feeling like really sluggish and, uh, quite unfit and there was a lot of beers involved and a lot of like sightseeing and just, you know, um, going quite easy on the exercise. And when I got home, my sister was starting to train for a half marathon and wanted someone to help. And so I'm like, yeah, I'll give it a try. And from there just decided just to build up to the half marathon status and Uh, at the stage, my training sort of progress quite quickly. And I changed that half marathon to a full marathon. Um, and yeah, it, it was just a passion that just triggered from there. Wow. Nice. So what is your favorite distance to run now? Um, I'd say like throughout my whole entire running career, my favorite distance keeps coming back to the half marathon. That's probably your most popular. answer, I think it's just that the answer that's just like, it's not grueling. It doesn't take like six months of training, but it's still challenging enough for you to feel really rewarding afterwards and feel like you've put in a really decent effort and something that you're really proud of, uh, in the last say 12 months or so I've kind of shortened that distance and taken my passion towards like five, 10 K trail type of races and challenging with like the, the heels and the change in directions. hurtling over tree trunks and that kind of stuff is been a spark in a new passion of mine. Nice. Well, it definitely activates some different muscles. That's for sure. Actually, I didn't tell Brody this, but I'm kind of curious because I, I've never had on a guest from Australia before. So I wanted to ask you a Australian trivia question. Is that okay? Is that okay? Yeah, sure. Presses on. Okay. All right. So this is actually in the entertainment realm. I was trying to go running realm, but I really couldn't find anything. So this I think resonates with a lot of us here in the States. I wonder if it resonates with you, but what do you think or what is the highest grossing Australian movie? Oh, is it called Australia? No, no. Ah, the highest grossing Australian movie. Nah, I don't know. You're going to have to tell me. It relates to crocodiles. Crocodile Dundee. Yeah. Really? Wow. That was so long ago. Yeah, apparently that's the highest grossing Australian movie. So I was just trying to look at some fun facts for Australian trivia. And that's what I came across. And I said, you know what? I bet a lot of people have seen this movie before, but let's get into shin splints. So tell us what are shin splints? Uh, good question. So, um, there is, it's kind of like loosely termed like the correct terminology could kind of call it is a medial tibial stress syndrome. And it is, uh, almost like an overuse injury that affects the inside border of your shin bone. And, uh, in terms of what causes it, I don't know if I'm jumping here and there, but, um, It's kind of, there's like two debating theories of what actually causes it. One is around about the actual shin bone itself and the damage done to the bone. But the other competing theory being like the muscle sort of pulling away from the bone and causing a bit more of a tension type of injury, um, which the research shows like the two competing theories. Um, there's evidence to back up each of those theories. So. what people need to know as runners is that it's usually just an overload injury if you've done something too quickly, or you've had a particular extended time off, or you're just returning to running from holidays or if you're a new runner, it's just like an overload of that inside shin bone that exceeds the capacity of the body to tolerate it. Yeah. And I know there's. a lot of new runners right now with COVID going on. So I thought this would be a good topic for us to talk about because I know in a lot of the runners that I work with, it seems that it's those beginner runners who are, you know, all kind of gung ho and here on the East Coast in the States, it's starting to get warmer. So the weather is getting nicer. So we're starting to get out, starting to, you know, trying to be as active as possible going through these difficult times. And So when you say overload to the bone, so essentially they're kind of almost doing too much too soon. Is that correct? Exactly. If you can just imagine like every bone tendon ligament within your body has a certain load capacity. And if you exceed that load capacity, it can get sore. And if you ignore that and continue to push beyond that capacity, it starts to break down. You start to get these sorts of injuries and that's why 80% of the runners out there. are injured due to training errors or doing too much too soon and exceeding that capacity and shin splints is no exception. Yeah, so that's actually a really good point that you bring up with training. And a lot of times, and especially as physios, we focus on, you know, traditionally, I guess, we focused on the physical part, right, and so in strength, or, you know, how much mobility they have. But I would concur with you and the runners that I see a lot of it is related to certain training errors. And even I just did a run coaching course this past weekend. So I was inside of my computer all weekend and it was like gorgeous over here. But that was a big thing that really resonated with me is in the things I've learned is how important it is with that progression and building up that base level of training first before adding pace and speed or hills or right mileage. So that's something that I think really kind of. know, really sank in for all the injured runners I've seen before and then asking them their story and it's kind of similar to what you're talking about is they say, you know, I used to run in the fall or they take all winter off when the weather's cold and then you get like the weather starts to get warmer and then they're like, yeah, so I just went out and ran, you know, 15 or 20 miles this week and it's like, okay, you haven't done anything in three months but now you went out and, you know, That point definitely should not be understated for everyone who is listening is we want to make sure that the training aspect is done appropriately in order to prevent these things from occurring. And I didn't mention it here, but for my friends who are here on the live within Facebook right now within the Healthy Runner Facebook group, you guys can simply type in your questions below that you have for Brody. I know a couple of you have had a history of shin splints. So I'm sure you got some burning questions that you are, you're kind of wondering. And I know Katrina works with a lot of beginner runners and we had her on the show a couple of weeks back and she says, yes, that's very common. Um, I think she's also seeing that in the beginner runners that she helps and Marva is ready for some more info. She wants some shin splint relief. Uh, so does Katrina. So Brody let's get into. If I was a runner who had shin splints. Should I run through shin pain? Yeah. Good question. Um, like you mentioned before, new runners, very, very common, uh, extended time off. I'd say it's also very common with those who have had, uh, pre-season or like someone who's had an off season for, like you said, three, four months in a team sport, and then they try and get back and be like, okay, I need to get fit again. Let's sort of. work on our cardio, let's grind our body to the ground. They're of another common population. If they're a soccer player or football player, whatever have you. And then they return into their pre-season train, try and boost up their cardio. They're another really common demographic. Uh, so should you run through shin pain? It depends. And it depends on the level of irritability. It depends on how long you've had the injury for. It depends on, um, certain other individual factors. Generally speaking, if someone's had shin splints for say four to six weeks and their pain levels are relatively low, then I would always ask them, okay, what are your pain levels? Like just as you start out, once it warms up, what does the pain level get to? And once you've got to the end of your run, what are the pain levels? What are they like afterwards? What are they like the next day? And it's following those symptoms over a 24 hour period of time before you can establish whether the body has responded well to that load or whether it hasn't responded well to the load and if you receive like a spike in your symptoms, let's just say you're two out of 10 pain when you start and then it settles down to a one or a zero out of 10 when you've warmed up and start running, some people can say, you know what, that's probably the green light to continue running, but then the next day when you're walking around, you're hobbling around at like a five or a six out of 10 pain. That's a good sign that your body hasn't responded to that load and you need to have a day or two off. And then if you resume your running, make sure it's at a less intensity and a less duration than what you've done previously, because we know that the load that you've put it through hasn't, uh, undergone a good reaction. So maybe we want to have the distance and see how that feels. And if the pain the next day or the symptoms the next day still remain relatively low. Um, it can be a good sign that you're tolerating those well. And then you can combine other treatments and other aspects with your running to aid recovery while you're still running through shin splints, if that made sense. No, it does. And I think, you know, I like to think about that as what is the level of tissue irritability, right? How irritable are those tissues? And that's kind of what you're talking about in monitoring how the pain is currently or after a run and then seeing, I like how you talked about, you know, monitoring your it for that 24 hours and seeing how does it respond to give you an idea on how to make that judgment on whether or not it is okay to be able to run with that pain. So that was great. So we, we do. And I'll add there as well. It doesn't have to necessarily be zero. So the message to get across is for most runners under the right guidance, the pain doesn't have to be zero. with running and I've even just this morning, um, posted an article about Achilles tendinopathy and like the rehab. Did you see that one? I did. Yeah. And it had like this pain monitoring module that, uh, they follow and this zero to two out of 10 pain is actually safe for a runner, but then they have the between the two to five out of 10 pain is acceptable, but we're kind of, uh, we're kind of wary of it. And then anything greater than five to 10 or greater than five out of 10. is considered like a high risk zone. And if you're rehabbing your tendons and rehabbing your injury, and while you're rehabbing that, that injury, you're running at the same time, we want to make sure that those pain levels are towards zero, but it doesn't have to be zero. I think you bring up a great, great point because that is still a common misconception within the traditional medical world in that, you know, the runner needs to be out of pain. So most. traditional medical providers will say, okay, you have pain, stop running. And then when you don't have pain, try it again. Right. And say, it's okay, let's just stop running and stop doing what you love. And then make sure you're not having pain. And then you know what, hopefully, you're just lucky this time and go back to doing the same thing you did. And well, fingers crossed that it doesn't come back. But I like what you said is that a lot of those injuries are typically more chronic and load. And I love a lot of what you talk about on your podcast is kind of managing that load and building up the resiliency in those tissues. So to make sure that they can handle the stress and the load. So I think you're bringing a great, great message to all the running community out there on a lot of the information that you're sharing with your community. So I love that. Yeah, I think that you'll see like medical professionals that you can tell aren't runners and they're the ones that will say, don't run. Why are you running for if you're getting injured, let's do something else or let's, um, you know, try cycling or something. People just don't understand that runners want to run. They want to run as much as they can. And that's why they get injured in the first place, because they usually do too much. But you can also, when you see a professional who is, um, really proficient with seeing runners, they can. modify your running in so many different ways. Like the variety could be so much. It can just be as simple as, okay, instead of jogging, let's walk hills. Let's jog every second minute and walk for every second minute. Let's like, and you just play around with the variables to keep the athlete running so that they feel better about themselves, uh, while still, um, not exacerbating any of their symptoms. Yeah. No great point. So Sundar has a question here. because before we get into treatment actually, so his question's relevant to kind of causes, he's wondering, does shin splints occur because of running on a specific terrain? I'd say hard surfaces might be a particular factor with this, but if we get into like risk factors and we get into treatments and that kind of thing, one of the most common links, if we were to talk about terrain and technique and that sort of thing is the rate of um, pronation or like the range of pronation. And if you're, uh, a certain running style or a certain running terrain that, um, would manipulate that, that range, I think most of us know what the pronation is, it's like the rolling in of your ankle, which is a totally normal movement, but it has been linked if that range of movement is greater in someone that it could lead to an increased strain up in the inside shin. So let's just say if you're running. hills or if you're running say outdoors in like variable terrain and you're running against a slope that's causing more pronation or if you're like on softer grass or like branches and that kind of stuff that causes more pronation then that could increase the strain but similar to if you're on harder say concrete and you exhibit like a crossover running pattern that could spike the rate of your pronation and could potentially, um, increase the strain on the inside of the shin. Um, but it's all on individual circumstances. It depends on how the individual is running as well. Great point. And I know just from my clinical experience in working with, you know, the runners that I see, I've seen certain patterns for some reason, treadmills, I don't know if it's with the bouncing, it's almost too much bouncing. but I've seen shin splints specifically more in treadmill runners. And then, you know, looking at the other option you talked about was kind of load of the bone. Someone who's running on a really hard surface, like I was just listening to a podcast the other day, actually I was talking about running on like cement or sidewalk and everyone's doing virtual races now. And they were kind of saying, if you're doing a virtual marathon, you know, don't map out your course where it's all like sidewalk. and it's really, really hard, hard surface, as opposed to maybe the road or something softer that you're not doing your 26.2 on that kind of cement type of surface where there's literally no shock absorption. So I think a lot of that is consistent, but one thing that I got from your message is that some of that overpronation or rolling in could be a contributing factor. And if the terrain... causes you to overpronate a little bit more than that, maybe a causative factor. Yeah. And I don't want people to, um, get really cautious about pronation and overpronation. Like pronation is a totally normal action. And the amount of pronation that you have, like the body will slowly adapt to that amount of pronation that you have totally normal, but let's just say if we're using the sidewalk, for an example, in some sidewalks, there can be a gentle like towards the road, if that makes sense for like draining purposes and things. And if you're running on that slope, just very like just a couple of degrees, that causes one foot to roll, to pronate more than the other foot. So your outside foot will pronate more and the other foot will supernate more technically. And so if your body isn't used to that sidewalk and isn't used to having that amount of pronation on that one foot. And you decide to run 10 Ks or do for heaven's sake, that long marathon on concrete. Uh, the body is going to say that's too much for that foot. That's too much pronation for that foot that I can handle. If we were to do it in slow doses, I'd get stronger and I'd adapt and I'd, um, you know, prevent that injury from occurring, but for now you've spiked that, uh, load and therefore we're going to have a reaction to the shin. Nice. Well said. Thank you. Um, so now let's get into some treatment. So if I was having shin pain, how am I going to fix it? And what is the best treatment or how do I get back to running without shin splints? Yeah, cool. I think it would be a good time to just put in here that like an accurate diagnosis is the key. We want to make sure that the medial tibial stress syndrome is a, the accurate diagnosis before we even discuss treatment. Uh, especially shin splints because there can be some really severe, um, misdiagnosed conditions that are out there and stress fractures would be a number one like thing that we need to rule out. So very important that we get that assessed. Um, shin splints, if we want to try our best on this podcast to differentiate the two, sometimes a stress fracture will be more local if you, it's still on the inside border of the shin, but can sometimes be more of a pinpoint pain. Uh, whereas shin splints can be a little bit more diffused. Like it could be like, say three to five inches in, um, like range along the inside of the shin, most likely, um, ruling out stress fracture definitely is number one. The other one is compartment syndrome, which can be usually present at the front of the shin. And that can get quite serious as well. So we want to make sure that we're getting that accurate diagnosis. But once we have identified, okay, it is shin splints, all this medial tibial stress syndrome. Number one would be, okay, what caused it in the first place? And usually can identify some changes in running some changes in the load, some changes in the style or terrain or something, recognize what has overloaded the shin splints and then back off that. That overload. So it might still be continuing to run, but we're removing what's overloaded it in the first place. And so that can just be as effective if we catch it early, if we catch it in the, um, the really low levels of symptoms, sometimes that's all we need. If they say, okay, I've ran, um, 10 Ks on a footpath. And then we say, okay, let's just run a case on grass and let's see how you go. That might just be all that's needed. But in most cases, it's not a perfect world. Usually people come to us with months of shin splints that are They're hobbling and they're like even walking and stairs and that sort of thing can be symptomatic. So in that case, if someone is that severe, we can, uh, do things like taping. We can try and control what the motion of the ankle is doing just to offload the shin splints just, uh, momentarily, just while the symptoms settle down. If people are responding really well to tape, then maybe consider some orthotics. So orthotics would just be on an individual basis. It's actually just trial and error works for some doesn't work with others, but can be really, really effective for some, uh, the trial and error can, can be a good approach. And so once we get that away, once we reduce that level of irritability, then we want to have a look at how someone's running. And I kind of mentioned a little bit before that's when we're talking about someone's narrow step with or crossover pattern. So if someone's running to say on a treadmill and they were to film where they're stepping, if you were to film from behind them and imagine like a straight line going straight down that treadmill, if someone was to be running on straight on top of that line, so they're kind of like running on a tightrope kind of action, that would instill a little bit more pronation than someone who has a wider step width. And in my clients who do have shin splints, I do get them on a treadmill or get them running outside and have a look at how they're running. And if they are eliciting like a really narrow step with or a real crossover pattern, so their right foot is crossing over to the left side when they're making contact with the ground, we might consider widening that step width. It just needs to be for the even a short period of time, just while symptoms settle. And then if they're symptoms are completely alleviated. They have permission to slowly go back to their narrow step with if they find that more comfortable. But a lot of people choose to just adopt a slightly wider step with just to reduce the risk of re-injury and those kinds of factors. I hope that covers a lot of your answer or your question. Yeah, no, I think that's great. So what I heard from that is that you're really looking at kind of what are the contributing factors and if it's coming from the foot and ankle, then possibly doing some, you know, treatments to alleviate some of that, whether it's taping or a temporary foot orthotic to control some of that motion, as well as retraining or working with their gait pattern during their running. And whether it's temporary while their symptoms, like you said, well, you know, they're getting back into running, and their symptoms are starting to come down, or if it's something that Might be a permanent change. Yeah. The same thing can be said with massage and dry needling and all those other modalities that are short-term pain relieving, which I do in my clinic. And I find really good results. Uh, but we do need to start shifting our focus away from that temporary short-term relief and toward like a, uh, a running sustainable long-term kind of plan, which would include the, the gate retraining analyzing their running. analyzing their training programs, see if they're having many spikes in training, just educating them about things like terrain and things like increased spikes in load and going away with that knowledge. And that would, um, clinically justify, you know, uh, sound prevention program and a sound like rehab program, cause you're educating them on a proper, uh, training program and training structure. So that it minimizes the risk of these sort of overuse injuries moving forward. Yeah. And that's the benefit of having someone like yourself or myself, when we're working with the runners that we help is to be able to monitor, you know, their progress and see how they feel after each of those runs and make those necessary changes. So like you said, if you're going to work on gate retraining and changing a pattern, but you're doing it in a controlled manner where you're utilizing some clinical reasoning and there's a rationale behind why you're doing what you're doing versus kind of just giving a blanket treatment, right? So just ice your shins, you know, after every time you run, right? Which we know is just gonna help symptomatically and kind of, you know, hide those symptoms, just make it feel good temporary. So I like that you highlighted that and I'm very passionate about that and I can tell you are as well. So I think that's great. And I also agree with, you know, any of the soft tissue treatments, you know, I've found those helpful, dry needling especially in that area. And then even I would say sometimes ankle mobility, right? So sometimes some of those joints within the ankle, you know, will need to manipulate, mobilize and get them moving if they are, you know, stiff or they landed a wrong way and they kind of locked that ankle up. So now they're not moving through some of those, some of those movements. What are your thoughts about strengthening at all? And do you include strengthening for this condition? Strengthening is very important. The, um, like we want to make sure I reiterate a lot, but the, the training loads are matching your level of strength. So you need to be strong to be a runner in general. Like a lot of people say you run to get fit, but you need to be really fit to be a runner and it's, it's a, um, it's a factor that everyone needs to consider. when it comes to shin splints specifically, we want to make sure that the entire kinetic chain is, um, strong. And there has been some evidence to show that there can be inhibitions or weakness in say the glutes or the quads or the calf, um, the perineals, like all these sort of muscles, if they are weak, have been shown to increase the risk of shin splints. And so with that evidence out there, you need to it kind of shows, okay, we need to be strong in all these muscles to work that whole connect chain in order to prevent shin splints, but also for rehab as well. And if you look at the anatomy, I'd say the soleus muscle or the soleus muscle is probably the really, really strong component when it comes to shin splints. If you have like a cross-sectional area of the calf, you'll see that the soleus is the big muscle that forms a part of your calf that actually attaches onto the inside of the shin. There's like fascia that goes from the soleus onto the inside shin bone. And that has been part of one of the theories when I was talking about that traction, that pulling away of the muscle and fascia from the bone that can cause shin splints in theory, as one of the theories, the soleus is one of those main muscles. And so if we get that really, really strong and... So it can tolerate more of that load when you're running, then it's going to have less reaction on the shin as it pulls away, if we want to use that to drug, druggery term, but, um, yeah, the, the soleus muscle itself is so powerful when it comes to running. It uses six to eight times your body weight when you're running. Whereas your gastrocnemius, which is the other muscle of your calf, only uses around two to three times your body weight when it runs. So the soleus muscle is so much more powerful. where if we strengthen that and build up that capacity, then, um, you're setting yourself up really well to, uh, not only overcome your shin splints, but then prevention splints. And so an exercise that you can do for the soleus muscle would be if you're at the gym, um, just doing a seat, a seated calf raise machine. So you're, you're sitting and your knees are bent at 90 degrees. You have some really heavy load on the top of your knees and then you're just doing some seated calf raises is a good example. Nice. So for those of you watching the video version, I actually have a little anatomy friend here. So what Brody's talking about is that gastroc muscle is the outer one, like that's your big calf muscle you're familiar with. But your soleus muscle lies underneath that. And when we pull this guy off, actually, you'll see is this is what is going to line the shin. So those are the outer muscles. So you're going to have your inner muscles. that align to your shin bone, which is here. So those are the muscles that he's talking about that attached to that shin bone. And the seated gym machine, unfortunately, might not be an option for a lot of you guys now, because our gyms are pretty much still closed over here. At least these part, at least the Connecticut area of the United States right now. So there is actually and what I'll do is I will drop a link to a YouTube video that I have on how to work your soleus with your knee in a bent position for those of you watching this video as well. So kind of strengthening that soleus muscle, that deeper muscle is important as well as working the whole kinetic chain. And I will because I'm just I feel like I'm so passionate about I'm going to drop it again. I've mentioned this a million times. But strengthening those hips. rotator muscles, those deep rotator muscles, which are kind of those anti pronation muscles that slow down your lower leg from going into if, as Bertie said, it is that pronation motion that is contributing to your shin splints. So I'm a big believer and I feel like a lot of generic based strength programs don't focus ever on strengthening the external rotators. So doing specific exercises for those muscles I found helpful in the runners that I do work with. Yeah. And if people want just like a generic strengthening program, that's also going to be beneficial because you're building up the whole, like I said, at the start, we have our muscles, our tissues, our ligaments, tendons, all of them have a certain load capacity. And if we exceed that, it increases our risk of injury. It just makes sense to build up a good, um, base and. as soon as you start doing strengthening of your whole entire kinetic chain, you're just raising that resiliency and you're building up that tolerance for those tissues to tolerate load. And so it just makes sense to have more capacity when you are a runner. And you can do that through strength training. Yeah, no, that's, I loved when you said before that you need to be fit in order to run because my whole motto is you have to train in order to run as opposed to saying thing as your former training. Yeah. So yeah, no, that's great. And All right. So we talked about treatment. So now how, what about prevention? How can we prevent shin pain from coming back? So let's say maybe in the fall, we were training for a half or a full, and we did wind up having some shin splints in kind of where we were peaking in our training before that fall or that half marathon. And we're just starting back out now, but I'm looking to prevent it from happening when I build up. What are some thoughts in terms of prevention? It would kind of just like, transition from treatment. So we'll be like repeating ourselves a little bit. Um, we can query some gait retraining. If someone is one to have a real crossover pattern when they are running, we can look at their, um, technique and we can look at their offering a wider step with to see if that's, um, something that feels comfortable for them. And if it does, then we'd probably get them to continue that because it just reduces the strain on the inside of the shins. So that could, um, potentially start reducing your risk of, uh, developing this injury in the future. Um, the other thing I have again, strengthening. So just maintaining a really nice strengthening program as a regular routine. So about twice a week, um, while you're building up for your half marathon or full marathon, the strength training can back off in the, like say month or six weeks leading up to the actual race. But before that building up a really good base is a good preventative tip. Um, what else do I have a well structured just running program. So making sure that if you are preparing for a half marathon or a marathon, you're following a really nice, um, running program and that will just limit the, um, the errors of any spikes in training. And then the other preventative tip I have probably enough for someone is training for a race or something is just to recognize that if you do have an extended time off, if you do have a couple, two or three months off, Make sure that when you get back onto the track, make sure it's just very gradual, like 40% of what you would do prior. And then just build up to 50, 60, 70% over the next coming weeks and just providing the body just to adapt as you build up to what the, the loads that you were used to, um, can be a really nice, uh, strategy just to implement. And this is one of the, the ideas of me starting the podcast and why I've called it the, the run smarter podcast is because. You need to recognize these patterns and you need to recognize the, the situations that you put yourself in. And if you have had time off, it's having the intelligence and having like, the awareness to recognize, okay, I have had two, three months off. Let's slowly build up. And that sometimes that's all that takes. And if you just have that knowledge, then it makes you a smarter runner and reduces your risk of injury or, um, is a preventative tip in its own right. I know it's, it's really. crazy because when I hear you talk, it's like I'm almost looking in the mirror. And because one of the five principles of my kind of spark blueprint that I kind of created in how to be a healthy runner is the fifth principle is train smart, with proper progression and being consistent. And, you know, everything that you talk about, and I've been listening to a lot of your podcast episodes, I'm just like, you know, shaking my head, I'm like, yes, yes. And I agree. And I love that idea and thinking even about this terrible situation that we're in with COVID and all of the races being canceled. And I know it's been really tough on the running community, but think of this as actually a blessing in disguise and actually having the time to be able to train smart like you talk about and build up strength and build up a base. of training versus how you would have normally maybe went from winter to, Oh, I'm going to sign up for this half marathon in four or six weeks. And you know what, let me just throw some training in there because I need to get a race in and the weather is getting nice and I need to get in shape. So let me get a race on my calendar. Right. So think about this as a golden opportunity for us as runners to really do these things that the strength training and building up that base of training under your legs before you start hitting the speed work, before you start hitting the hills, the temple runs, even before you do those. Right. So I think that's even just like someone who has, like most of the people I see, um, the runners that I treat, they've had pain six months minimum, like it's usually 12, 18 months, two years. And this COVID time is a perfect time to really get on top of it because people like staying, people like running and it's a really good time to just start implementing the right things and start seeing that transition to overcoming that injury. And like we're talking about, it's good to have the smart, it's good to know all this knowledge. It's another thing to implement it and that's where the challenging thing comes for runners because they love running so much. They want to run. So far, so fast, they want to train for, they have all these ambitious goals just because they love running so much and it's so hard to implement all these smart decisions while satisfying your ambitions. And yeah, it's a, it's a big step from knowing all this and implementing it at the same time. Um, so that's where you might need a coach or you might need someone to, um, slow you down or recognize the patterns that you're having. And a lot of the runners that I see, the smarter runners that I see, they know, they're like, yes, I know I did this. I had a 60 K week and then I've gone to 110 K week. And, um, I know it's a, it's a bad decision, but now I have this pain. So can we deal with it? And so having a coach to help guide you, if you're that type of runner that can't trust yourself is a good, uh, thing to implement. Absolutely agreed. So we are in the final stretch here. So. If you could change one thing about the misconception of running, um, w would that be? I think we'll open up another can of worms another time for this answer, but I think it's understanding why people get injured. Like a lot of people have the misconceptions of why they've got injured in the first place. And a lot of it is disempowering. A lot of it is, um, just, well, not true. And, um, There could be things like someone comes in, they said, like, I'm always getting injured because my hips are out or I'm always getting injured because my one leg's longer than the other or my feet collapse or my glutes aren't firing. They come up with all these excuses. Well, what they perceive is the, the mechanism of their injury, but then you go through their training loads and they've had a huge spike in their training and they've made these training errors and If your brain and your body believes that you keep getting injured because you have one leg longer than the other, it's not serving you in any way whatsoever. And the evidence shows that it's not serving you anyway whatsoever. So, um, might be a topic for another time, but that's just one that I just wanted to throw out there. No, I think that's great. I think that's great. Um, so I'm sure there are going to be many runners who heard this healthy runner podcast or watch the video on the spark, your training YouTube channel. I want to learn more about how you help runners. How can they get in touch with you, Brody? Uh, so if those who love Facebook groups and things, I've got my own Facebook groups, so the run smarter podcast. If you want to just look at that and, um, join that I am quite active on Instagram. So my handle is Brody dot sharp. And that's sharp with an E at the end. Uh, I am on Twitter, less active on Twitter, but still there. Brody sharp is my handle. And if someone wants. or is interested in, um, the podcast itself, you can just type in, um, the run smarter podcast wherever you're listening. And, uh, my last sort of plug, I guess, is my website. So, uh, breakthrough running.physio is my website. If you want to learn more about me, and if you want to learn more about online physio and how it can help you, uh, they can go there. Yeah. No, your website is very, very good. Uh, a lot of great resources on there and actually Instagram is how we connect it. So we connected on Instagram a couple of months back there. So yeah, Brody's on Instagram and you can find him there. So if you guys have found this talk helpful for those of you watching on Facebook, whether it's the live or the replay, please hit that like, hit the love button, show Brody some love from us over in the States. And we appreciate him coming on, sharing his expertise with us and taking the time to chat with us tonight for us and in the morning for him. So. Please also, if you have a friend who has shin splints, share this episode with them, whether you're listening to the podcast episode or you're watching this on Facebook and share it with the friend who can help out there. So thank you again, Brody, for taking the time to educate us all. And thank you all for those that jumped on here on the Facebook Live. If you listened on the podcast or if you watched on the YouTube channel, we greatly appreciate it. Remember every Monday night within the healthy runner Facebook group, we go live at 8 PM Eastern standard time. Uh, so keep us in mind in your schedule. If you want to get any of your running questions answered. So thanks again, Brody. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Um, if anyone does want to follow me as well and has someone with Shin Splints, I do have an online course as well. That's will be on the social media links that I have. And there's a really nice module on shin splints. If anyone wants to dive into the online course. Um, but yeah, it's, it's been great to come on and talk about all these sort of things and hopefully it's provided a lot of knowledge for the runners and yeah, appreciate you having me on. Yeah. I know this has been great. So thank you guys again, stay active, stay healthy and just keep running until next time. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Running Smarter Podcast. I hope you can see the impact this content will have on your future running. If you want to continue expanding your knowledge, please subscribe to the podcast and keep listening. If you want to learn quicker, jump into the Facebook group titled Become a Smarter Runner. If you want tailored education and physio rehab, you can personally work with me at brea Thank you so much once again and remember, knowledge is power.