Shin splints is a really common running related injury, one of the more common injuries that runners, or anyone playing running sports, will come across at some point during their athletic endeavours.. It's essentially a reaction to an increase in load beyond what the body can tolerate. A really important part of physio is making sure it’s not something way more dangerous, like a stress fracture. 

What might be happening is the lining on the outside of the bone on our tibia is becoming inflamed or irritated. There's a couple of theories around why that might happen. So potentially, it's a reaction to the forces that are involved in running. The other idea is that it's an injury where the muscles attaching to that area are pulling on the bone creating this inflammatory response. A big focus for us is to keep you running, so the earlier the better in making sure we don’t have to decrease your running volume, and manage the load in a way that you can handle it. 

We might be more okay with you pushing through symptoms to get you to move forward and to allow your body to be able to handle the loads of running a little bit more. It depends on you, so it's worth coming in and getting it checked out so that we can decide what the best treatment pathway and get you back out there, pain free.