Shin Splints are the bane of many runners. They cause pain and tenderness along the shin area. The pain can sometimes make it hard, or impossible to run or even walk.
Shin Splints appear to affect between 13 and 20% of runners, but there are solutions to this frustrating injury and in this article we will talk you through some of the short term and long term solutions.
Shin splints are also known as medial tibial stress syndrome and the clinical name explains what is going on here. Shin splints occur when too much stress is placed on the bones at the front of the shin, the muscles that attach to these bones can’t handle the stress and get inflamed and painful.
Is it okay to run through shin splints?
It is best not to run through shin splints as continued irritation of this area can lead to chronic tendonitis or even in some cases stress fractures. It is far better to find out why you are getting this pain in the first place and try to solve it.
The pain in shin splints comes from the inflammation, so a good first step to calming this, is to ice the shin area. Place an ice pack on the sore area for up to 10 minutes every hour and over a few days the inflammation should calm down. If it doesn’t you need to get in touch so we can assess the area.
Why do I get shin splints so easily?
Your shin splints will reoccur if your muscles can’t handle the forces being placed on them. When our feet hit the floor, whether we are walking or running, we exert a force on the ground. In return, the ground sends a force back up to us, known as a ground reaction force.
This force is equal in strength and opposite in direction. So if you are walking and hit the floor with say 70kg of downwards force, the ground reaction force will send 70kg back up through your body. If we are running, that force can be as much as 3 times your body weight, that is perhaps 210kg of force, depending how much you weigh! That is a lot of force and the body has to dissipate that force.
The body dissipates forces through muscles, joints and bones. The two bones at the front of the legs in the shins, flex in order to dissipate forces. When they flex, the muscles that attach to these bones also flex. If your muscles are able to cope with that movement, you won’t experience pain, but if they can’t, or if the forces are excessive that flexing can create trauma in the muscle attachments, creating inflammation and eventually pain.
How to never get shin splints again?
There are several ways to stop this damage occurring. Building up to your targeted running intensity and distance is important. This gives the muscles a chance to adapt to the increase workload and get stronger, allowing them to handle the forces being asked of them. Sudden changes to speed, distance or intensity are likely to create pain in the shin area.
Looking at how your foot hits the floor is another important factor in how your body deals with the forces of running. When a runner hits the floor with their heel first, they are very dependent on their shoe for absorbing the forces produced. The heel bone is not designed to absorb large forces, such as those seen in running. It is designed for the smaller forces of walking.
So if you are a heel striker, you need your shoe to dissipate some of that force and as your shoe gets older it will do this less effectively. The long term solution to shin splints is to move to more of a mid-foot running style. When you hit the floor in the middle of your foot, you have a lot of joints, bones and muscles to dissipate the forces the floor recoils with. This means that a lot less of that force ends up travelling into the lower leg.
A mid- foot stride is typically shorter and the aim is to get the ball of your foot and the heel to hit at approximately the same time. Meaning the arch of your foot can flex and assist the bones and joints with force dissipation. This is easier with a lower drop shoe, shoes with a high heel to toe drop encourage the heel strike, so if you suffer with shin splints, aim for a low or zero drop shoe next time your shoes need replacing.
If you aren’t sure how you strike the floor or need more help to understand how to mid-foot stride when you run, we can take a look with our comprehensive running analysis sessions. Over 90 minutes we will assess your running, alter your gait and fully understand why you are getting shin splints and how to rectify the situation.
Take a look at our running video below where we talk through the mid foot strike.
For more information on shin splints, take a look at this NHS website for those more bio-mechanically minded, here is a useful review paper on the subject.
