Shin Splints
Shin splints should never occur. Many new and 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 are not the problem. It wasn’t spending too much time on your feet, or too much running. It was poor gear selection, training build up, not understanding mechanical load, and poor information available on exactly what shin splints are.
Even if you do get shin splints, you have to understand this isn’t some isolated situation that is unique to your body alone, or that you are genetically predisposed to shin splints (sorry you’re not special). Many people get shin splints. But talk to any true runner, and they will tell you that they never think about shin splints, or have never dealt with them. Why is this?
This is almost always a case of outputting too much power—much more than your mechanical system can handle at the moment.
When it comes to running, you have to think in the long term, and understand it is a game of not getting injured. You need to ask yourself: “why do people that consistently run not get shin splints, but those that don’t seem to always get them?”
Three Reasons They Show Up:
1) Conditioning of the Soft Tissue In Your Legs
Referring back to the second paragraph of this post, if you lived a past athletic life and got shin splints, you have to think why they happened. Did you go from months of zero aerobic (and therefore mechanical) training, to all of a sudden running multiple miles a day in practice or PT?
Much like before, your legs still aren’t conditioned enough to handle the mechanical load that your new running routine requires. The sheer amount of higher steps and ground impact will be a shock your body has not received before.
If you do not currently run, I always suggest to get comfortable walking ~7500 consecutive steps per day, over the course of 6-8 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 5-10 miles in between a 4-week period. For example, if week 1 is 20 miles, do not run more than 30 miles by week 4. This allows your body to slowly adapt to higher loads. It would be prudent to focus on higher quality runs inside of less miles per week at this stage.
2) Improper 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) Not Understanding Effort and Mechanical Load
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! Especially don’t think you’re special and the only that gets bad shin splints. You only got them from running harder and putting a higher load on your body than it can currently take. What this means for you is the higher your effort (HR) is while running, the higher the mechanical load. This is especially true when looking it from a pace to load perspective. When running tempo, intervals, or sprints, your mechanical load is extremely high.
Most new runners have no idea of what “slow” actually means. A lab study on your lactate threshold is best to define what your different heart rate zones mean for you. But without a proper lab setting, the Heart Rate Reserve formula is best to define your zones.
Formula for you Heart Rate Reserve is: HRR = HRmax − RHR (resting heart rate)
So if you’re max sustainable HR is 190, and your RHR is 55, then your HRR is 135.
To find your heart rate zones from HRR, you multiply your HRR by what zone you want to run in, say 60% (for zone 2). You take 135 * .60 = 81. You then add your RHR back to this number to equal the lower end of your zone 2—which would be 136.
An easier way is to just use this calculator: (LINK)
**But the problem itself isn’t in staying inside your heart rate zones.**
If you can train in, for example, zone 3 and not have shin splints—then this is okay!
If you can only train in zone 2 or lower and not have shin splints—that is okay too!
You have to find where your mechanical load tolerance is at different paces. The more you run hard vs easy will determine how much load you are able to handle. This is why I suggest building a foundational training block, consistently recording 5-7 hours a week running easy/moderate, before adding speed work in. Your mechanical system needs to be built—and it usually takes a longer time to adapt versus your aerobic system.
For some, this may just be walking or jogging very slow.
PS—if you have shin splints while walking, get an x-ray.
This leads me to having the opposite take of many when it comes to shin splints. I think all of the toe taps and towel pull stuff is BS. To me, if there is no true injury such as a stress fracture, shin splints will always be a mechanical or muscular (not injury, just not trained enough) issue.
Both of these systems need to be trained like the aerobic system. As you wouldn’t only sprint without a proper aerobic base first. Or try and run a marathon with no aerobic base. The same goes for your “mechanical base”, as only running hard without teaching your body to handle a higher power load will lead to issues such as shin splints and later hip pain probably.
And to be fair, I think everyone who doesn’t run, or only runs hard, will get shin splints or have shin issues. This is why shin splints are a common theme and target for exercise gurus online. If you’re someone who runs hard often and gets shin splints, I wouldn’t tell you to never run hard. I would actually keep your hard workouts in. I would just add more running into your program at an effort that does not cause shin pain.
Many coaches would have you sit out for weeks and do exercised. I wouldn’t want you to training and lose fitness, your body just needs more moderate/easy work to help it adapt.
Getting to a place where you can run without pain is training your mechanical and muscular system, much like training at low intensity trains your aerobic system with low stress.
-BTR