The treatment
for shin splints is rest, ice, cross training and addressing the
biomechanical causes. (Straddling a round horse w/ short legs would not be
causative by my definition. And it's hard to imagine high enough impact in
the stirrups from posting unless one's feet were actually lifting out of, and
then smacking, the stirrups w/ each stride or unless one had too much weight
in the stirrups, not using the thrust/rhythm of the horse for
lift.)
Beverley
I loved your
description with the fruit. It made it very easy to visualize! I use to suffer
shin splints when I first started running. At that time, running shoes
left A LOT to be desired and anything less than 60 miles a week for training
wasn't really running. My, how things have changed.
I am getting
ready for a marathon and find that cross training with trail running and
replacing my shoes often (more often than I would like 'cause they ain't cheap!)
has prevented any such problems. However, I was getting shin splints bad a while
back while riding 50's. I couldn't figure it out until I stopped wearing half
chaps. My chaps were gripping the fenders on my saddle which caused a
constant friction between my calf and shin bone. I could barely walk after a
ride and actually had bruising along the inside of my leg right in the middle of
my shin area. I guess the pulling of the calf muscle back and forth caused the
fascia to constantly pull across the front shin bone. It was extremely
painful. Even a few too many martinis couldn't mask the pain :) They did
however, make the walk back to my trailer hysterically funny (:-O
Noooooo!
