Among authors over the past 35 years, medial tibial syndrome, or "shin splints," has been interpreted to mean many different things. We present a review of the literature to attempt to ascribe one definition to this clinical entity, and to clearly define its symptoms, signs, pathophysiology, biomechanics, and treatment. In addition, we describe our results with five patients whose seven affected limbs eventually required surgery for this condition, and we compare them to the results in the literature.