Shin Splints: Why Your Shins Hurt When You Run and How to Settle Them

Shin splints describe an overload of the tissue and bone along the inner shin where the calf muscles attach. Do too much too soon, whether that is mileage, pace, hills or a switch to harder surfaces, and that tissue gets irritated before it has had time to strengthen. It is a capacity problem: the demand outpaced the adaptation. The NHS page on shin splints gives a clear symptom overview.

This distinction matters. Shin splints usually cause pain spread along a stretch of the shin that eases as you warm up. A bone stress injury or stress fracture tends to be a sharp, pinpoint pain over one small spot that worsens the longer you run and can hurt at rest or at night. Pinpoint, worsening or night pain deserves an assessment before you run through it.

• Reduce load, do not stop entirely: cut volume and intensity to a level that stays comfortable, and keep fitness with low-impact cross-training.
• Build calf and lower-leg strength, the single most protective factor against recurrence.
• Progress running gradually, increasing one variable at a time rather than several at once.

Our guide to injury prevention exercises covers the strength work that keeps the lower leg resilient.

Shin pain is a running clinic staple, and getting the diagnosis right matters more here than almost anywhere. Alex, PhysioHub's founder and a HCPC-registered physiotherapist, sees it in Uckfield in new runners following a couch-to-5k plan, in footballers and netballers early in a season, and in experienced runners who added mileage or changed surface too quickly. Having competed in sport from childhood through to international level, and with MSK experience across the NHS and private practice, he separates classic shin splints from bone stress before anyone is told to keep training.

Most people book after weeks of running through it, icing afterwards, buying new trainers, and finding it comes back on the third or fourth run every time they restart. Your first appointment is a 60-minute assessment: full history with your training weeks mapped out, hands-on testing to distinguish shin splints from a bone stress injury, calf and foot strength testing, and a clear explanation of what overloaded you. Treatment starts on the day and you leave with a graded return plan that strengthens the tissue while the mileage rebuilds.

Clients get back to running consistently rather than in fortnightly cycles, reach the race they were training for, and finish sessions without the shins aching that evening. The calf and foot strength built along the way also makes the next training block far less likely to trigger it again.

You can access this through our sports injuries and performance service for the diagnosis and the graded return, and our gym-based 1:1 rehab and strength training sessions for the calf and foot loading that carries it. If you are aiming at a race or a return to a sport, returning to sport after injury explains the staged approach, and you can book an assessment before running through it any longer.

Can I keep running through them?
Often you can run at a reduced load, provided the pain stays low and settles quickly. Pain that climbs during a run or lingers afterward means you have done too much.

Will new trainers fix it?
Footwear can help at the margins, but shin splints are mostly a load and strength issue. Address those and the shoes matter far less.