Shin splints

Submitted by Terry Mackin on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 03:38.

I am a parent of a former field hockey and women's lacrosse player. My daughter developed severe shin splints after a couple of intense years on artificial turf. By the time my daughter's injuries were diagnosed as severe and borderline fractures, a lot of damage had already been done. When we asked how long my daughter had felt this pain, she admitted that she had complained about shin pain for a long time and had been instructe to wrap her shins in ice after playing. She decided to forgo her senior year of playing these sports because she felt that the coach would continue to push her to play on. My daughter admitted that several other players endured the same treatment. As parents, we felt responsible for not picking up on the symptoms earlier. Is this a widespread problem? How can parents avoid injuries that gradually get worse and go undetectected until it is too late?

Average:

Five Important Issues Here

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 18:39.

Great question with five distinct-yet interwoven issues as I read it. 1) Artificial turf, 2) warrior girl syndrome, 3) overuse injuries, and 4) ignorant coaches, and finally 5) The high dropout rate for girls. I will address them in order. 1) In fact many athletes are now refusing to play on artificial turf (Beckham comes to mind) because it has little or no shock absorbers like the natural earth to help reduce the wear and tear on athletes and trauma to the lower extremities- shins, ankles and legs. For an excellent article by our Track and Field expert, Olympian Meredith Rainy-Vellum, click here. 2) Warrior Girl syndrome: There have been many fascinating studies coming out of the military that show that girls suffer more stress fractures compared to the men. The same studies have shown that women may be tougher than the men and while they do get injured more often they end up leaving the service because of their injuries less often than the men. It has been mentioned many times that injured women in great pain speak up less because they feel they have something they need to prove that men don’t. A wonderful book that elaborates on this and some of the studies I have read is Warrior Girls by Michael Sokolove. 3) Overuse Injuries. Your daughter was being asked to use the injured ankle by doing more with it than her body could handle. These are called overuse injuries. Shin splints are preventable. For twenty articles on OI—enter the words in the MomsTeam search, And, 4) Her coach was either ignorant or frankly abusive. Any coach that pushes his/her athletes is and should be held accountable if a child suffers a preventable injury. One of the signs of a good coach is that he/she has safety training. Read More. 5) Drop Out Rate: While participation by girls in sports has increased at all levels (Olympic, professional, college and high school, and youth) and society is more accepting than ever of female athleticism, the fact that girls continue to drop out of sports at six times the rate of boys is an indication that we still have a long way to go as a society in reaching the goal of gender equality in sports. Read more here. All throughout YouthSportsParents.com we have provided many excellent articles that will help prevent the five situations that you write about. While your daughter will never be able to recapture her senior year we are all working hard so this does not happen to other girls. Please spread the word.

Brooke de Lench

Publisher

YouthSportsParents.com

Author:

Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers inYouth Sports