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Shatisha Diggs
“Five is up; six is on deck; and seven is in the hole!” shouts the official. Your heart is
pounding, adrenaline pumping, as you do a couple of jump drills before your turn. You take off
your sweats and long sleeve shirt because it is time to step foot on the runway. “Six is up; seven
is on deck; and eight is in the hole!” Standing next to your mark on the runway, you take a deep
breath, exhale, step back, and take off. As you’re accelerating at a controllable speed, thousands
of thoughts run through your head. Think up. Relax your arms. Don’t look at the board. I want to
beat my PR (personal record). As you approach the twenty-eight foot board, you cycle your left
leg, float in the air, and as you begin to land you take a step and bound off the right leg. Now
you’re higher than you were before, and this last step you take when you land will make or break
the distance you jump. You’re about to land again and you step on your left foot. While in mid-
air you bring your knees to your chest and extend them at the very last second falling into the
sand pit, landing on your butt. You look at the official, and she tells you 34’6”--your PR in the
triple jump, one of the many events one can participate in, in the sport of track and field.
Ecstatic, you get up to run to your coach, but then you feel a pain in your lower left leg.
One of the most common injuries for athletes is tibial stress syndrome or more commonly
known as shin splints. Shin splints refer to a pain or tenderness that occurs between the ankle and
the knee. The shin bone becomes increasingly agonizing when you’re constantly running, or
jumping on it. The inflammation can occur on the inner edge or just behind the shin bone.
Usually the causes are excessive stretching of the muscles along the shin bone, pronation,
running on hard surfaces, and abrupt changes in training routines. How can track and field
athletes perform any better if the overuse of their muscles feels worn out from training? Shin
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splints as a result of physical activity in running or jumping can be avoided if athletes are taught
proper training techniques.
In my paper I argue that to decrease the number of shin splint injuries, athletes need to be
taught proper training techniques. I prove that keeping training routines constant is of the utmost
importance. An abrupt change in training is not beneficial for the muscles. Athletes should
alternate between repetitive workouts, weight training, and stretching. A variety of workouts
eases stress on the muscles, as opposed to the same strenuous physical activity. Finally, I argue
that athletes must be taught proper running form in order to prevent injuries such as shin splints.
When coaches give workouts, each workout should have some purpose behind it. For
example, some coaches assign six 250 meter sprints with a two minute rest in between, crossing
the 200 meter mark between 35-28 seconds every time. The purpose of this workout is to build
