Dealing with Shin Splints and shoes

[coomarlin]

I'm a big guy (6' 240lbs) and I'm having problmems with Shin Splints. I've got a few strikes against me such as being flat footed, wide footed, and being a heavy runner. I've been playing a lot of sports like softball and basketball so with my weight it's pretty hard on my knees, shins, and feet. I've dropped about 20 pounds and looking to drop more weight.

I've been icing my knees and shins after heavy exercise but thats not enough.

I need to really look at the shoes I'm wearing. Because of my wide feet I've always purchased New Balance because they were really the first to make the 4E wide shoes common. But I admittedly just kind of picked the shoe I like best as far as styling and then bought it in a 4E. Sometimes this worked pretty well while other times I would tear up the shoes so fast it was costing me a fortune.

Recently I've been hearing about motion control, stability, and cushioning shoes. From what I've read it sounds like I should be wearing motion control shoes. But the options are few and far between when it comes to motion control and wide sizes. I've kind of given up on style because most of teh motion control shoes I've seen are pretty damn ugly. The cool stylish shoes are all neutral and will break down fast on me.

I've been looking at the following shoes:
ASICS GEL-Evolution 4
New Balance 1011
Brooks Beast

They are all fugly but if they help my feet feel better and make it easier for me to deal with shin splints then I don't care what they look like.

Does anyone have recommendations for addition shoes I should look at and also any help on dealing with shin splints.

What is your story with requiring hard to find shoes?

 

[StageLeft]

Generally a heavy runner would be given MC if nothing else is known, but it really is so specific that it may not be the case. When you look at existing shoe wear, where is the wear pattern? Ideally, in a heel striker, the lateral (outside) part of the heel will be more worn than the medial or center portion. Then as the foot moves through the motion, wear will center around the ball of the foot and the big toe, ideally existing around the big toe area. If it's too medial at this point, stability or motion control may be advised. If it's center of the forefoot or even more lateral, then it's not.

However, the big caveat here is that shoes are only a small part, in most cases, of one's injury prevalence. They can make a real difference, but I believe they're only the icing on injury resolution, the cake being factors such as your body weight (definitely on the right track losing that because it exacberates injury significantly while running), acclimation to running (how often you do it), strength (strong legs, joints better than weak ones), flexibility (as opposed to general inflexibiltiy I'm talking more about asymmetries, like one hip very tight and the subsequent motion of your running being unbalanced, so damage occuring more on one side than the other), whether you always run into traffic (so, camber of road imbalancing things), etc.

In your case, have you tried running "flatter"; ie instead of bounding up and down as most people do with the calves pushing you high you try and keep your head a bit lower? The result may be that you find your heel striking the ground with less aggression and you hit the mid and forefoot sooner. You can also increase cadence, ideally up to the high 80's or more. If you run at a lower cadence you will have significantly more force per stride.

If you're sure you need MC shoes, I'd invite you to check the shoes forum at forums.runnersworld.com. All people do there is talk about running shoes The beast are often well recommended as our asics (at least a couple of years ago Asics had two MC shoes).

People may advise you go to a running store, but at least in my personal experience I got what I paid for, though it continues to be constantly advised so perhaps I was unlucky.

 

[RagingBITCH]

If you're looking for pure running shoes, go into a specialty running store. Bring in your last few pairs of running shoes if you still have them - they'll take a look at the wear pattern on the sole and sometimes the padding inside the shoe, like Skoorb said. They'll measure your feet and recommend usually a few different pair.

I personally recommend the running store - the shoe prices are normally the same, (might be a little inflated compared to a sporting goods store) but they're runners and can look at your gait, pronation, and other tendencies you have while walking/running.

 

[coomarlin]

Thanks to both of you for offering your suggestions and thought. Very informative indeed.

In my case I'm not really a "true" runner. Meaning that I don't often go out and run on a track or road strictly for the enjoyment of running. I do try to jog occasionally for exercise but I don't have much range. When I run it's normally because I'm trying to stretch a double into a triple or I'm in the outfield trying to shag a flyball. I always stretch and warmup before I play sports and I really don't have any type of muscle injuries or strains. For me it's mainly achy knees/feet with sore shins.

I've never really thought or have been told to run flatter. I guess it makes sense and it's something I could try.

I'm not really sure who I'd talk to in my town about running. It's a small town and most of the places that sell shoes are places like Finish Line, Foot Locker, and Dicks. Most of their employees are just college kids that don't have a clue.

My foot wear pattern is odd when I compare it to what I've read. The worn area of my soles is on the outside of my heel and the outside of my forefoot. This would make me an underpronator. But at the same time I've read that flat-footed people are overpronators and usually only people with high arches are underpronators.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Some easy solutions that will definitely help: run on a soft surface - a rubber track, grass, dirt road, etc (concrete/asphalt will kill your joint); work on your form - check out the POSE running form. The form is very important since it will help you reduce impact and bad form. I've heard several people proclaim having the same problems as you and fixing it with POSE form. These are the simplest two things you can do so work on those and if your joints still hurt, come back in a couple of weeks and I'll try to help out more.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: coomarlin
Thanks to both of you for offering your suggestions and thought. Very informative indeed.

In my case I'm not really a "true" runner. Meaning that I don't often go out and run on a track or road strictly for the enjoyment of running. I do try to jog occasionally for exercise but I don't have much range. When I run it's normally because I'm trying to stretch a double into a triple or I'm in the outfield trying to shag a flyball. I always stretch and warmup before I play sports and I really don't have any type of muscle injuries or strains. For me it's mainly achy knees/feet with sore shins.

I've never really thought or have been told to run flatter. I guess it makes sense and it's something I could try.

I'm not really sure who I'd talk to in my town about running. It's a small town and most of the places that sell shoes are places like Finish Line, Foot Locker, and Dicks. Most of their employees are just college kids that don't have a clue.

My foot wear pattern is odd when I compare it to what I've read. The worn area of my soles is on the outside of my heel and the outside of my forefoot. This would make me an underpronator. But at the same time I've read that flat-footed people are overpronators and usually only people with high arches are underpronators.

That gets trickier, but if you are underpronating like that, it may be simply that you need a highly cushioned neutral shoe like the asics nimbus.

 

[coomarlin]

I went back to Roadrunner sports and noticed they had an applet called "Shoe Dog" that asked you a set of questions and then recommended shoes based on your replies. Shoe Dog recommended Stability shoes for me. They sell 78 different stability shoes versus 22 motion control. So there is more variety to chose from.

So now I really don't know what to think. Motion control, Cushioning, Stability

Guess I need to find some running profressionals to analyze my stride.

 

[thespeakerbox]

its cause your big. Lose weight on an elliptical or bike then move to a hard surface. You will wreck your joints otherwise. And they're a pretty important thing to have. heh

 

[coomarlin]

Originally posted by: thespeakerbox
its cause your big. Lose weight on an elliptical or bike then move to a hard surface. You will wreck your joints otherwise. And they're a pretty important thing to have. heh

Yeah the weight is playing a large part. I dropped a few more pounds (down 23).

The last gym I was a member at had fantastic Life-Fitness eliptical machines that had nice long strides. I thought about purchasing an eliptical but I can't afford a life-fitness machine ($2500) and all of the cheap (<$1000) elipticals you get at Sears and Dicks are short stride pieces of sh!t. Their strides are so un-natural I'd probably do more damage to my knees using them than I would running.

 

[StageLeft]

What about cycling? You can for $150 buy a magnetic trainer that turns your normal bike into a stationary one. I have put dozens of hours on mine. If you are using a mountain bike, spend $15 to replace the rear wheel with a slick (otherwise it's VERY noisy).

 

[coomarlin]

A few years back I actually bought a nice magnetic trainer and used it religously. But I developed a repetative motion injury in my left knee called chondromalacia that an orthopedic surgeon advised me to stop using the bike. After giving up the bike for a month my chondromalacia disapated. I still occasionally ride my cannondale on trails but I gave up the spinning style exercise bike for good. I sold the bike and got about 90% of what I paid for it back.