What causes shin splints?
Dr. Marcus O. Schuster It seems just about anyone who has some distance under their feet, has experienced shin splints at some point in time or another. They [shin splints] are notorious for being difficult to treat and recover from. The pain at fist is mild, only occurring after 1-2 miles. Then the pain can become severe, as if the front of your legs are on fire. The frustrating part is it comes out of nowhere. Questions I often hear are “I didn’t hurt myself so… how did this happen?” or “what caused this?” It is frustrating to have pain and not know where it came from. This is especially true if there was no trauma involved. Pain is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong, so we have to listen and look carefully. Shin splints can occur from a number of different reasons. The most common reason I find is chronic, abnormal pronation of the feet caused by instability of the lower leg and ankle. Foot pronation occurs when your foot strikes the ground and accepts the weight of
