How to Exercise and Stretch for Shin Splints

Veronica Delfino: Shin Splints are unbearable and slow healing condition we all want to avoid. Hi, I'm Veronica of Watch Mojo.com and today the X-Fit team is showing us some exercises to prevent and treat shin splints.

Derek Della Roca: So this is a great exercise. This is going to train the tibialis posterior muscle and this is one of the muscles involved in a posterior shin splints or inside shin splints.

Veronica, step on to -- get onto the stamp with a very wide stance and toes in, heels out. So as she gets the heels high, the heel’s go low. High and low, she’s getting away from 10 to 20. You can get up to 30 wraps to build up the endurance, strength endurance of that muscle. Great! Good job Veronica.

So as well seen massage therapist, they can do some work on your shins and try to loose some things up. You can do a little bit of self massage. We’ll try that with the phone roller. So you're going to roll forward and back to your uncle, that’s it. And also try different angles, so turn in one side or the inside on one leg and the outside on the other and turn the other way. We’ll do the other angle. So the white foam earlier is softer, this is a little bit denser, a little bit firmer once you get used to the white form -- you can try the black form roller a little bit more solid or harder and then also try one fourth, tibialis posterior, so anyone sitting down, put the back of your legs on here and try to roll to the bottom of your knee and back. Get down to the ankle.

So this is an extra exercise for another important muscle related to the shin as the tibialis anterior or the front shin muscle that we’re targeting here now. Veronica, can you get your leg up on the bolster here. I’m going to wrap around the tip of the shoe. I'm going to get a bit attention onto the band and her job is quite simple, it’s just have to toes like come all the way up and let’s say come all the way down,

Variety is very good for shin splints. So variety can be with the source from an angle on the outside also from an angle on the inside. So to work in the soft tissue into the arch, what we’re going to do is roll your foot on the top of the tennis ball, just going forward and back, maybe making small circles trying to pick out the areas and maybe sore. This is going to target muscles in the arch of the foot. There's many layers and many muscles in that area. So in a Buddha style or prayer style kneeling position. You keep the shins on the ground as well as the ankle on the top of the feet.

If it sits back, put a little bit of pressure to that area and the aim is just to curl the toes except the toe nails are coming off the floor. She does that four reps. This is going to be a stretch. So you stretch for the tibialis anterior muscle. Tibialis anterior muscle is in the front of the shin and it’s a culprit sometimes, ancient splints. If you get this stretch done, you take a sit back with your foot and you drag the toe ahead, with emphasis on the big toe and the shoe or foot is pretty straight up and down. It’s vertical. And she moves and drags along. It’s a pretty slow drag. The emphasis is that the toes are pointing away from the knee and thus stretching out that front shin muscle. There’s another version as well, they can help target another area in that muscle. And that is with the foot’s an angle. This is now with an emphasis on the four small toes doing the dragging.

Okay, so this is a manual resisted moves that you can do with a therapist. You won't be able to do this on your own. The way I work is up on the hand and all the resistance for these movements. So I want you to, not turn but you bring your toes up and in that way. And so let’s go work Tibialis anterior, up and out. So this angle, this is looking -- so you’re going to push down and in. That’s going to be for tibialis posterior and then down and out for your coronia.

Here is the stretch exercise. A stretch for the tibialis posterior, but this move here Veronica, I’ll have you step up to the box and the wall with the pinky toe higher and getting the heel close to the wall, to the surface here. Leg is straighter, she’s going to move her body towards the point where her toes are at. As you hold that position for as little as five seconds, can you get into that position and stay there for 30 seconds. So try to strengthen the muscles around the ankles here. We’re going to work a little bit on balance. So we’ve got different balance in surfaces here. let’s get and it use two feet all the way across each one. That’s it.

Try to find the center then. Good. And then walk to the next one. Oaky, until one -- maybe walk across this a few times. You can also do just having the balance into your regular workout so just doing more of bicep curls. It’s going to work the ankles, muscles a little bit more. If you’re really advanced, you can try to do it on one foot as well. So try to move one foot to the center. That’s it. Nice work. You got it.