How to Fix Shin Pain When Running

Do you get shin pain when you’re running?

It’s frustrating when all you want to do is run.

In this blog we’ll show you how you can fix them.

What are shin splints?

The term ‘shin splints’ is used to describe the pain felt along the front of your lower leg, on the shin. This pain is most felt in the lower leg between the knee and ankle. Your G.P. may refer to the condition as medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS).

Shin splints frequently affect people who engage in moderate to heavy physical activity. Shin splints also affects those who take part in high impact sports. These could include, running, football and rugby to name a few!

Sometimes the pain of shin splints can be so intense that you need to stop running or doing the sport you enjoy. As runners ourselves, we’ve both suffered with shin splints. We know and understand the pain you’re going through at the moment. There's nothing more frustrating than wanting to be fit and healthy... but you're body saying no right now!

That’s why we’ve put this video and blog post together. Reading this blog will mean you can get back running sooner. You'll also be able to return to running in as good if not better physical shape than you are now. And you won't have to worry about getting shin splints again!

How do you know if you have shin splints?

There’s a difference between shin splints and a stress fracture. If you have a stress fracture none of what’s in the video or this blog will help. If you’re in any doubt, you should see your G.P. or physical therapist.

A couple of ways to tell if it might be a stress fracture rather than shin splints:

• Is the pain localised in one small spot? If so, this could be sign of a stress fracture. With shin splints you tend to find the pain is all the way up the shin.

• Does the pain feel better in the morning? This can be another sign of a stress fracture. With shin splints, muscles tend to be tighter in the morning so they’re more painful earlier in the day.

How to fix shin splints

Stage 1 - Reduce The Load On Your Shins

So, the first thing you need to do is reduce the amount of load on your shins so they can start to recover. Yes, that's going to mean taking a temporary break from running. To reduce the load on your shins we recommend switching to another form of exercise. This will take the pressure off your shins and get you back to running pain-free faster!

The easiest way to do this is to replicate your run training with a different way of exercising. This is called crossed training - you use more than one sport or exercise in your training.

Cross training will help you to build a stronger body that is more able to cope with the stresses of running when you get back to it. To cross train effectively, we recommend exercising for a similar amount of time and at a similar intensity. By doing this you maintain current fitness level and will still be training effectively. Not to mention the fact that when you return to running you'll still be fit.

Here's a few examples...

EXAMPLE 1 - The Bike

“I’m currently doing walk / runs – 90 seconds walk, 60 second runs x6. What can I do?”

We can replicate your walk runs on a bike. We could do a 90 second slow spin with a 60-second blast.

The key when you switch to another form of training is to feel similar to how do on your runs. The means if you're usually able to hold a conversation while you run, you should be able to on the bike.

Here's another example…

EXAMPLE 2 - The Rower

“I do 3 x 30-minute runs a week at the moment, what can I do?”

If you’ve got access to a rower, then you could try 3 x 30-minute rows at a steady pace.

They key here is to see what works for you and what you have access to. Rememebr the goal here is to take the pressure off your shins and give them a break while staying fit.

The thing to focus on here is that this is temporary. You will get back to running, it’s just a short break. The two examples we just showed you will help maintain your cardiovascular (CV) fitness. This means when you get back to running, you’ll be starting at the same if not better fitness level. This will make sure you're in better shape to progress more quickly.

Stage 2 - Check Your Ankle Mobility

Poor ankle mobility can be a contributing factor to shin splints. If the ankle isn’t mobile and moving properly, it places more force on other parts of the leg when you’re running. This can aggravate the muscles around the shin and cause them to get inflamed.

To see if you have good or poor ankle mobility, you can get down into a squat position as shown in the pictures. If your heels are coming off the ground then you’ll benefit from improving your ankle mobility.

To improve your ankle mobility and loosen off your tight muscles you should be stretching and foam rolling. Sometimes a tight muscle can be a misdiagnosis for shin splints. To make sure this isn't the case we need to stretch and foam roll.

Stretching

Soleus stretch

There are two muscles that make up the calf, the soleus and the gastrocnemius. The soleus muscle sits behind the gastrocnemius muscle. If the soleus muscle is tight from exercise, this can run against your shins and aggravate them. Here's how to stretch the soleus muscle...

Stand facing a wall about a metre away. Take one step toward the wall with your right foot.

Place both of your hands on the wall. Bend both knees and lean forward remembering to keep both of your heels on the floor.

You should be feeling the stretch as indicated in the picture. Hold this position for 30 seconds and then switch legs and repeat.

Kneeling Shin Stretch

The muscles on the front of your shin may be tight too. If they're tight they could be rubbing against your shin and aggravating them.

The next stretch is a Kneeling Shin Stretch. This will help stretch the muscles on the front of your shin. The muscles you'll stretch here are the Tibialis Anterior and the Extensor Digitorum Longus.

You must have good flexibility in your knees to do this stretch as you will be sitting on your heels. If this stretch causes pain in your knees - skip it. Here's how to do the kneeling shin stretch...

Kneel on a mat with the tops of your feet flat on the floor and your bum over your heels. Hold this position for 30 seconds.

Foam Rolling

Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) technique. Foam rolling can help to decrease muscle tightness, soreness, inflammation and improve your range of motion. In other words, this can help to you get rid of your shin splints and get back to running quicker!

Shin Foam Roll

The first one you want to do is a shin foam roll. This will work the the Tibialis Anterior and the Extensor Digitorum Longus muscles. Here's how to do it...

Work the foam roller back and forth over the muscles around the shin. We recommend using a softer foam roller to start with, that has some give in it. Here’s one we recommend.

This will be painful at first, but stick with it. As it becomes less painful, you can upgrade your foam roller to a hard one. This will help to get deep into the muscle.

You can adjust the weight you put on the shin by shifting your hands. This will be painful at first, especially if you've never done this before. But as you do it, blood circulation increases, and after about 20 seconds the pain should reduce. If you're consistent with your foam rolling, this will become less painful over time.

We recommend including this in your daily routine giving each leg about 2-3 minutes.

Calf Foam Roll

As a runner, you're probably going to find your calf muscles are tight. Running is a high impact sport and the lower body, specifically the calves, take a lot of the impact. Hopefully at this point in the blog, you know how important it is to look after yourself. It's really important to give your calves some TLC.

The calf muscles are made up of 2 muscles, the soleus and gastrocnemius. So we’re going to get deep into those with the foam roller and ease them off, again, 2-3 minutes on each leg.

Because you’re foam rolling for 2-3 minutes, we recommend switching the angle of your leg. This will allow you to work different parts of your calf muscles. You might find that different parts of the calves and more sore than others. If this is the case, we recommend spending more time on the sore areas.

When you find a sore area, stay on the sore part for 10-20 seconds and it will start to feel less tight. It's kind of like putting a hot knife through butter. Try and do this most days as it will speed up your recovery.

The key thing most runners miss

After you've stretched and foam rolled the shins and calves, you need to strengthen your whole lower body.

Whether you're a beginner runner or a seasoned pro, don't increase the amount you're running too quickly. When people do this, shin splints and other injuries are likely to flare back up. Injuries, like shin splints, are your bodies way of telling you you need scale your training back a little.

Give your body time to adapt to your new amount of running before you decide to do more. This is how you're going to be able to become a runner long term!

The best way to make sure body can cope with your run training is the strengthen your body. Because you're here and you may have shin splints, in this case, you need to strengthen your foot and ankle.

An easy way to do this is walking around barefoot – either at home or at work, depending on what you do for work of course!

You can also strengthen the feet, ankles, and arch of your foot by adding in some calf raises. This is a low-impact exercise, making it ideal if you have shin splints.

Calf Raises

We recommend starting with 3 sets of 10-15 reps.

When you’re comfortable with that you can move to single-leg calf raises. Again, we recommend doing 3 sets of 10-15 reps.

Heel To Toe Raises

When you’re comfortable with that you can progress by doing some heel-to-toe raises. Heel to toe raises is a way you can challenge your body with a bit more load.

Once you’re happy doing this and you’re not getting pain you’re ready for some more advanced exercises. These advanced exercises will gently increase the load your lower body can cope with... and ultimately your strength!

Double Leg Hop

So, the first exercise is a double leg hop. Work up to 3 sets of 10-15 reps and once you can do this progress to single-leg hops. Again, working up to 3 sets of 10-15 reps.

The final progression of this exercise is doing back and forward and side to side hops. This will help to strengthen all the areas around your shin.

As you strengthen your lower body and start to think about getting back to running, you need to consider the shoes you run in.

Getting back to running

When you're ready to start running again, you want to start back easy with a staged approach.

To help you with this we’ve produced a training plan to kickstart your running journey. This training plan included guided audio runs and cues from us on what you should be doing at each stage of your run.

The last piece of the puzzle

One of the most overlooked pieces of the running puzzle is improving your run form. By doing this you'll be making sure your shin splints don’t flare up again and you're decreasing the risk of future injuries. Making a few improvements to your running form gets you back to running pain free and running faster with less effort.

Do your feet make a slapping noise when you run?

If your foot is making a slapping noise when it hits the ground, you're placing an unnecessary amount of stress on your foot. This could make shin splints flare back up, or other injuries like plantar fasciitis. This could also be the position you're landing on the ground, or that you're landing heel first.

This is known as heel striking. Heel striking places more force through your lower body compared to striking the ground with your mid foot. The world’s best runners run with a midfoot strike. The best position to land is with the midfoot. If it's good enough for the fastest runners in the world, it's good enough for you!

A high knees drill where you focus on landing on your mid foot can help to improve your run form. This will help you to move away from a heel strike and to more of a mid foot strike.

As you become more comfortable with a midfoot strike you can also try our ‘Faster Feet’ drill. This will challenge you to run faster while maintaining a mid foot strike.

Here are a few more quick wins to improve your running form

Running Relaxed

Running relaxed take some of that tension out of your shoulders. If you’ve ever tried hunching your shoulders and smiling... it isn’t easy! To run relaxed this is what you should do - run with a smile. It'll take the tension out of your shoulders, and make running easier!

Also, standing taller through your runs will get you looking forward. This is something we place a lot of focus on with our running clients. Looking forward rather than down really helps your running form. Imagine a piece of string attached to the top of your head pulling you up.