Phillip Newman developed an interest in the debilitating condition while he was working for the military. About one in three professional and amateur runners, including soldiers, suffer from shin splints, which cause pain in the lower leg and can put athletes out of action for months.

So when Mr Newman became a PhD student at the University of Canberra he decided to set about finding a treatment.

Mr Newman said shockwave therapy was being used as an effective treatment for tendon injuries in feet and shoulders, so it may be the answer to shin splints too.

He said the therapy worked by sending sound waves into the leg, prompting a healing reaction in the bone. ''It's an irritant, so it stimulates the cells to enter their healing phase,'' he said. ''There are a number of conditions, and this is one of them, where the healing process seems to have stalled, it's burned itself out, so the sound waves tend to restart that healing process.''

The treatment team hold a cylindrical instrument at the site of the tenderness during treatment and adjust the level of intensity if the patient felt uncomfortable, he said.

Other studies had shown it to be successful but Mr Newman's upcoming trial of 60 people would be more rigorous. Mr Newman expects shockwave therapy would become widely used as the price of equipment dropped.