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If you’re a runner who knows the obnoxiously unrelenting pain and tightness of shin splints, then you also know there’s not a lot you can do to find immediate relief. But you can at least diminish your pain—and release the underlying muscle tension that’s causing your agony—by practicing the right stretches for shin splints.
What Are Shin Splints?
The phrase “shin splints” is less of a specific diagnosis and more of an umbrella term that describes several different causes of shin pain when running, walking, or working out. It often refers to a painful inflammatory condition of the anterior tibialis muscle located along the shin bone. Shin splints can also be due to irritation of the connective tissue sheath, called the periosteum, that connects these muscles to the underlying tibia bone.
In the medical community, the conditions commonly referred to as shin splints are known as medial tibial stress syndrome.
What Causes Shin Splints?
Overworking the shin muscles through repetitive running, walking, or jumping can cause inflammation in the muscle fibers or connected tendons. Because the periosteum is not a particularly extensible type of connective tissue, excessive inflammation can cause tightness, pressure, and/or pain. Some of the primary causes of shin splints include the following culprits:
- Increasing your training volume too quickly
- Overtraining or taking insufficient rest days
- Wearing worn-out or unsupportive running shoes
- Heel striking or overstriding
- Running downhill excessively
- Running on hard surfaces, such as concrete and asphalt
- Overpronating or running with flat feet
- Having tight calves, weak shin muscles, or imbalances between the calves and shin muscles
- Running with weak hip abductors
What Helps With Shin Splints?
Addressing underlying muscle tightness can eventually reduce the shin pain you experience during running and prevent it from recurring. An effective stretching routine needs to target the anterior or front part of your shin where you feel pain and tightness as well as the muscles along the posterior side of the lower leg, including the calves and Achilles tendons, and upper leg, including the hamstrings and glutes. Tightness in these surrounding and opposing muscles can place excessive stress on your shins, altering your alignment and mobility, altering your stride, and overworking your calves.
There are other training changes you can make to help treat and prevent shin splints, including addressing muscle weaknesses. Strengthening the muscles in the feet, shins, hips, and glutes is an essential component to successfully navigating shin splints. This combination helps offset the common muscle imbalance of strong, tight calves and weak shins, which is a recipe for shin splints.
7 Stretches for Shin Splints
The following stretches and yoga poses help you target all the required muscles so you start to experience some relief.
1. Downward-Facing Dog Pose
Because all the muscles in your body are linked together, tightness in your lower back can trickle down and case limited mobility in your lower legs. Downward Dog is an effective stretch for shin splints because it targets all the muscles along the backside of the body, beginning at the Achilles tendons upward along the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back all the way through the shoulders. Bend your knees if you feel a nagging tightness in your calves, hamstrings, or lower back.
Practice Downward-Facing Dog Pose
2. Hero Pose
One of the most intense yoga poses for stretching the shins, Hero Pose can be practiced sitting or reclining. Make sure the bottoms of your feet are facing the ceiling and that your feet are in line with your shins rather than splaying outward. You should feel a stretch along the entire shins and front of your ankles. Remember to breathe.
If you experience discomfort in this pose, try sitting on a block or, if you’re reclining, place a bolster or a couple stacked pillows beneath your back. If the pain persists, skip this stretch.
Practice Hero Pose
3. Calf Stretches
As a runner, you already know several ways to stretch your calves. One of the simplest is to lean into a wall with your chest close and your legs further away. Keep your legs straight and your heels reaching toward the floor. If your heels don’t touch, lift your toes to intensify the stretch. You can also practice this one leg at a time in an extended lunge with your back leg straight and your front knee bent. Stay here for 20 to 30 seconds.
The Achilles tendon connects the calf muscles to the heel bone while the soleus is a flat muscle underneath the larger, stronger gastrocnemius calf muscle. You can stretch the Achilles tendon and soleus by repeating the same stretches that you use for the calves while taking a slight bend in your knees.
4. Arch Stretches
We often forget that the feet contain crucial muscles and tendons. Many of the muscles in the shin extend down into the feet where the tendons attach to the bones. These play an essential role in maintaining your arch when you are walking, running, or weight-bearing.
One of the simplest stretches for the feet is an arch stretch. Sit comfortably with your feet flat on the mat or bed close to your bottom with your knees bent and pointed toward the ceiling. Lift your toes toward the ceiling, using your hands if necessary, as you keep your heels planted. This should provide a stretch along the soles of your feet. Breathe here for 15-20 seconds and then release. Repeat 3 to 4 times.
5. Heel Walking
One of the best exercises for shin splints, heel walking lengthens the muscles along the backs of your legs and strengthens the shin muscles. Keep your shoes on if you experience discomfort in your heel or you don’t have access to grass. Simply walk forward on your heels with your toes pointed toward the ceiling. Walk with a normal stride length for 100 feet or so. Rest briefly by putting your entire foot down on the ground. Walk back on your heels.
6. Arch Doming
Also called foot doming or short foot exercise, arch doming is a helpful shin splints stretch for athletes with flat feet. It helps strengthen the muscles of the arch while stretching the top of the feet and front of the ankles, where there is often tightness.
The movement for this exercise is very similar to being in Mountain Pose or a pose such as Warrior 2 and hearing the cue to “ground down through the ball of your foot and heel and lift your arches.”
Sit in a chair with your bare feet flat on the floor. Lift the arches of your feet to form a dome by pulling the base of your toes toward your heels. Don’t scrunch your toes. Hold the stretch for 5 seconds, feeling the top of your foot stretching and the bottom of your foot strengthening. Release and rest for a couple of seconds. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
7. Child’s Pose
One of the best poses for stretching the shins, Child’s Pose relies on the pressure of your body weight to help stretch the muscles and connective tissue along the shins. As you sit back toward your heels, focus on elongating your spine as well as extending your toes toward the wall behind you.
Practice Child’s Pose
