ARE NOT
BAD LUCK.
HERE IS
THE FIX.
Most runners treat the symptom. This is how you fix the cause.
Stop reading for a second. Stand up and do as many single leg calf raises as you can right now.
Go ahead. I'll wait.
How many did you get? If you hit 33 or more you are probably fine. If you stopped somewhere around 23, you just found out why your shins keep hurting.
That is not a random number. Researchers at La Trobe University in Australia tested two groups of runners, those with shin splints and those without, and asked them to do exactly what you just did. The results were not subtle. Runners with shin splints averaged 23 calf raises. Injury-free runners averaged 33. A 30 percent gap, and almost certainly the gap between someone who runs through seasons without issue and someone who spends half the year managing shin pain.
Shin splints are not bad luck. They are not a foot problem or a shoe problem or just something that happens when you run too much. They are a strength problem. And strength problems have solutions.
How Common Is This Actually?
Before we get into the fix, here is how widespread this problem is because most people assume shin splints are just part of the deal with running.
PMC · Overuse Injury Review
Discovery Journals · 2025
PMC · MTSS Review · 2023
Madeley et al. · La Trobe · 2007
Half of all lower leg injuries. Up to 70 percent of runners in a given year. This is not a fringe problem. This is the most common running injury that exists, and the standard advice most people get is to rest, ice, and ease back in. Which works until you run again and it comes back.
Rest treats the symptom. Strengthening fixes the cause.
Why Your Shins Actually Hurt
The science here is straightforward and worth understanding because it changes how you think about the fix.
When your foot strikes the ground during running, your shinbone absorbs the impact. It does not bend dramatically, but it does bend slightly, the way a bridge flexes under load. Research by Maarten Moen and his team in the Netherlands confirmed that shin splints and tibial stress fractures both come from the same mechanism, the tibia bending too much under repeated running stress.
What determines how much it bends? The strength of the muscles around it.
Think of your calf muscles as the cables on a suspension bridge. When they engage on foot strike, they counteract the forces that would otherwise bend and strain the tibia. Stronger cables, less bending. Weaker cables, more bending. And when the tibia bends too much, too often, you get inflammation of the surrounding tissue. That is shin splints.
CT scans compared runners who had never suffered stress fractures with those who had. Runners without fracture history showed significantly larger bones and muscles. The tibia literally adapts to the size and strength of the muscles surrounding it. Build the muscle, build the bone.
Runners with shin splints averaged 23 single leg calf raises under strict supervision. Injury-free runners averaged 33. The difference was not effort or motivation. It was calf strength. This is the most direct evidence that shin splints are a strength deficit, not a running problem.
The Front Side Is Just as Important
Here is where most shin splint advice falls apart. Everyone talks about the calves. Almost nobody talks about the tibialis anterior, the muscle running down the front of your shin.
The tibialis anterior controls how your foot lands and lifts. Every time your foot strikes the ground, this muscle is absorbing force. Every time your toes come up between strides, this muscle is doing the work. Run enough miles on a weak tibialis anterior and you are asking a small muscle to handle a load it was never conditioned for.
Worse, if you only strengthen the calves without addressing the front side, you create an imbalance that can actually make things worse. The tibia is caught between two unequal forces and something has to give.
A neuromuscular programme reduced annual MTSS incidence in young female runners by 73 percent. Eccentric training of the tibialis anterior specifically increased maximal strength by 38 percent and reduced pain significantly. This is not a minor finding. A 73 percent reduction in shin splint incidence from targeted tibialis work is one of the most significant injury prevention numbers in running research.
A low-load calf raise program with blood flow restriction produced functional improvements in five of six athletes and complete pain resolution in three. Low load, high results. You do not need to destroy your legs to fix this.
You cannot outrun a strength deficit. But you can fix one in eight weeks.
The Protocol
Two exercises. A superset. One to three times per week. That is the whole program.
A superset means you do both exercises back to back without rest. These two movements are perfect for that because they are polar opposites. One muscle is resting while the other is working. You get double the stimulus in half the time.
Stand with your toes elevated on a SquatWedgiez or a small platform. Perform 10 reps with toes straight, 10 reps with toes turned out, and 10 reps with toes turned in. Each position targets a slightly different portion of the calf and surrounding structures. Lower slowly, 3 to 5 seconds down on each rep. Do not bounce.
Why three directions: The calf is not a single muscle working in one plane. Training all three directions builds more complete lower leg resilience and closes the strength gap that leads to shin splints.
Progression: Once you can complete all three directions for all sets, add weight or switch to single leg.
Sit with your heels elevated and a tib bar loaded across the top of your foot. Raise your toes toward your shin, pause at the top, lower under control. The floating variation keeps tension on the tibialis anterior through the full range of motion. This is the most direct way to build the muscle that is most likely responsible for your shin pain.
Progression: Once you can do 20 reps for all sets, add 5 pounds per week.
Add this superset to the end of your runs or leg sessions one to three times per week. It takes about 10 minutes. Consistency over eight weeks is where the research shows meaningful changes in both strength and shin pain. Do not do this once and expect results. Do it consistently and expect them.
The Bottom Line
Shin splints affect up to 70 percent of runners in a given year. The standard advice is rest, ice, and ease back in. That advice keeps people in a cycle of running, hurting, resting, running, hurting, resting.
The research points somewhere different. Strengthen the calf. Strengthen the tibialis anterior. Build the muscles that protect the tibia under load. A 73 percent reduction in incidence from targeted tibialis training is not a small number. That is the difference between a running season and a recovery season.
Go back and do your calf raises again in eight weeks. The number will be different.
- Shin splints affect up to 70 percent of runners annually and account for up to 50 percent of all lower leg injuries
- Runners with shin splints averaged 23 single leg calf raises vs 33 for injury-free runners, a 30 percent gap
- The tibia bends under load like a bridge. Stronger surrounding muscles reduce how much it bends
- Eccentric tibialis anterior training reduced MTSS incidence by 73 percent in one study
- Strengthening only the calves without the tibialis anterior creates an imbalance that can worsen the problem
- Two exercises, one superset, one to three times per week is the full protocol
- Rest manages the symptom. Strengthening fixes the cause
Moen MH, Tol JL, Weir A, et al. (2009). Medial tibial stress syndrome: a critical review. Sports Med, 39(7), 523-46.
Popp KL, Hughes JM, Smock AJ, et al. (2009). Bone geometry, strength, and muscle size in runners with a history of stress fracture. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 41(12), 2145-50.
Madeley LT, Munteanu SE, Bonanno DR. (2007). Endurance of the ankle joint plantar flexor muscles in athletes with medial tibial stress syndrome. J Sci Med Sport, 10(6), 356-62.
Bhusari N, Deshmukh M. (2023). Shin Splint: A Review. Cureus, 15(1), e33905. DOI: 10.7759/cureus.33905
Wirananta DH, Rahman F. (2024). Case Report: Rehabilitation and Return to Running Program for Shin Splints Runners. Jurnal Pendidikan Jasmani dan Olahraga, 9(1).
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