Shin splints should never occur. Many non-runners fear them, but they’re highly avoidable.
This fear is usually associated with past athletes having bad experiences earlier in their earlier lives. Sports & activities like Football, Soccer, Lacrosse, Cross Country, or serving in the Military are all associated with people getting “shin splints”.
I’m here to tell you that you were not the problem. It wasn’t working too much time on your feet, or too much running, it was poor gear selection, training build up, and overall lack of understanding what shin splints actually are.
Three Reasons They Show Up:
1) Conditioning of the Soft Tissue In Your Legs
Your legs aren’t conditioned enough to handle the daily/weekly steps that your new running routine requires.
Before entering the running world, get comfortable walking ~7500 consecutive steps per day, over the course of days and weeks.
The ~7500 steps can be completed over the course of a day and multiple walks. The goal is to make them “consecutive” though, with each walk being at least 2,000 steps. This is where volume on your legs starts to stack up and compound.
When adding miles onto your week (walking miles or running), follow the simple principle of not adding more than 10% or 5 miles every week, and pulling back to 50% every 4th week as a rest/recovery mechanism.
A note on the “10%" every week”: In the early weeks or “buildup” of miles, stick to a whole number addition every week. For example, when your weekly mileage is 10, add 5 miles the next week, not 10%. (10% of 10 is 1 mile, this is too slow). Start adding 10% in the 35-40mpw range.
2) Invest in Your Feet & Footwear
Yes, more than likely (>90% chance), all of your previous bouts with shin splints were due to poor footwear selection, and more importantly overuse of the same footwear.
Our bodies are insanely resilient, the shoes we wear are not.
A few rules of thumb:
Replace shoes after 400 miles or 6 months
Most modern shoes start breaking down around 400 miles of running. The problem is also once they start to deteriorate, there is no stopping them. So using them lightly, then storing them on the shelf for multiple months will also deprecate the foam in the midsole.
Separate your fitness shoes and daily beaters.
Do not wear your running shoes out for walks or going about your day. The goal is to preserve your shoes which in turn preserves your legs. Wearing them outside of running will lead to deterioration of the foam which could lead to ailments in your leg.
Along with separating your shoes between running and daily life, you should have a shoe rotation separated by type of run.
For example, a common shoe rotation guideline is:
Easy/Recovery shoe
This shoe will be a high cushioned, heavy trainer that does not invite you to pick the pace up. It is meant for slow runs in Z2.
Daily Trainer shoe
Meant for all training scenarios, but mostly for standard length training runs above desired race pace.
Tempo/Speed shoe
Reserved for speed days in your week, usually lightweight and responsive to invite you to pick up the pace and push yourself.
Race shoe
Lightweight and high performance, used only on race day and possibly your peak long run prior. This shoe will help you get your PR, but will come at a hefty price tag.
3) Run Slower Than You Want To
A tale as old as time: Ex-athlete goes out for a run —> Runs too hard because they think they “still have it” —> End up limping the next day —> Swear off running forever.
Don’t be that person, anon.
Running slow is a skill, and a perishable one at that.
Most new runners have no idea of what “slow” actually means. A scientific definition would be any pace where your body does not create blood lactate, but for our purposes, we will just use “z2”.
Formula for you Max HR is: 207 - (.7 * AGE)
So if you’re 30 your max sustainable HR is ~186. So your zone 2 cardio is ~120BPM.
Factor in 10% latency for all numbers calculated.
When running, also factor in a 10-15BPM bump in “zones”. So this 30 year old could have a Z2 (or below blood lactate threshold) of 135BPM.
Achieving a low BPM for new runners is the hardest task when starting. Sometimes, it can be around ~12:00 min/mile. A tool for combatting this issue is using Run/Walks, at a 1:1 ratio.
(Run 5 minutes on, walk 5 minutes, for 45 minutes, as an example).
-BTR