Burning Pain in Your Shins When You Run
So you’re training for a race and your knee feels fine but now you get a tight and burning pain along the lateral/front sides of your low legs. It happens after about 10 minutes of running or running anything fast. Even though you stretch before you run and do a lot of ankle mobility throughout the day to stay loose it doesn’t seem to be helping… what gives?
There are a couple of reasons why this is happening to you and to fix it you need to know the cause. If you want to know how to fix it, keep reading.
When you go faster:
Your shins get tight and burn when you run faster because you’re activating different muscle fibers. You have 2 types of fibers in your muscles, type I and type II. Type I are the slow-twitch fibers and are used during long, slow running. Type II are fast twitch fibers and are used during short bursts of running. But, you do use each muscle fiber a little bit during each kind of run so even if you aren’t sprinting, but are going faster than usual you’re going to recruit more fast twitch fibers.
There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just different. To fix this problem go to this section of this blog post.
When you run outside
Your shins get tight and burner when you run outside instead of on a treadmill, and this itself can be from a couple of different reasons.
Uneven ground
When you run outside the ground is always a little bit different. Even if you’re running on asphalt or the sidewalk there are variations that don’t exist on a treadmill. The treadmill is consistent, outside is not consistent. There could be divots, angles, rocks, etc. These all make your feet land differently and with different angles which makes your ankles and shins work differently than when you’re on the treadmill.
Other distractions
When you run outside besides the uneven ground there are also so many other distractions: watching where you’re going, hearing someone come up behind you, avoiding someone running toward you, hearing a bird or a dog near you and turning your head. These distractions take up energy that you aren’t using in that way on the treadmill. And these distractions mean you’re focused on more than just one foot in front of the other so you aren’t necessarily stepping in even steps (forward and back, side to side, etc) like you would be on the treadmill.
Running up hill
When you run up a hill you can get the tight and burning pain in your shins because of the angle your ankles are at. When you have more bend in your ankle (and your foot and shin are closer together) your shin muscles are contracted longer and through a larger range of motion than when you’re on the treadmill. Your muscles are working differently than when you’re on the treadmill. To fix this problem go to this section of the blog post.
Fix the tightness and burning pain
When you go faster
To fix the burning pain when you go faster include short, fast(er) runs during your training. You can do this 2 ways:
Have designated short, fast runs aka speed work runs that are just that: short and fast. If you’ve never done speed work before, start super short. How short? Shorter than the time where you get the burning pain. So in this example you get burning pain after 10 minutes of running fast. So your speed work would start at 5 minutes (after a 20 minute warm up and before a 10-20 minute cool down). Build on this over time by adding 30 seconds up to 1 minute each week.
The 2nd way you can do this is by incorporating a fast burst of running during your weekly long run. Again, keep this short, so in this example the pain happens after 10 minutes of running fast, so start with 5 minutes of faster running incorporated in your long run. Note, don’t do this on a long run that is a new distance long run because you would be changing speed and distance in 1 run, that’s a no-no for healing injuries.
Outside instead of the treadmill:
To fix the burning pain when you run outside vs on the treadmill there are a few ways, I’ve included 2 here:
Run some, but not all, of your run outside
If you want to get used to running outside, take some of your run outside. Do this by doing your warm up and some of your run on the treadmill. Partway through, go outside and run a little bit. Choose a timeframe that doesn’t hurt, so for today’s example the burning pain comes on after 10 minutes. Run outside for 5 minutes. Then go back inside for the remainder of your run and cool down. Build up by running 30-60 seconds more outside for 1 run a week.
Add distractions during your treadmill run
If the problem is the distractions: add some distractions to your run
Talk to someone on the phone while on the treadmill
Talk to someone standing next to you while on the treadmill
Sing
Watch tv
Stare straight ahead of you instead of at your feet
There are a few options here you can use to add some distractions to your run so you’re not staring at your feet and watching the exact placement. Start by doing a little at a time. Based on today’s example of the tightness and burning pain coming on at 10 minutes, start by having the distraction for 5 minutes and build onto this by 30-60 seconds for 1 run a week.
Running up hill
To fix the tightness and burning pain you get when you run up hill: you can stop running up hill, though this isn’t a good option because if you’re going to a race you may have to run up hill and then have this problem all over again.
Instead, include more hills in your workouts. This could be having designated hill workouts as one of your workouts during the week, or including a small hill during long workouts. I recommend the former: including short hill workouts regularly in your training. To do this find a hill in your area: run up it far enough that you get a workout but not so far that your shins bug you. Then walk down the hill, repeat.
Ok, so that’s all I have for you today. If you’re looking for more assistance getting past your pain and across the finish line learn how we can work together.
