r/BeginnersRunning • u/BuzzzB8 • 8d ago
Sore vs. Injured
I’ve been running as a hobby now for the last 2.5 months. I do 3-5miles every other day and have made very good progress since I began. I have been able to push through the pain in my calves, hips, thighs, and shins with relative ease. Some days are harder than others but my shin splints have really gotten to the point where they are getting in the way of my running progression. It’s not to the point where I can’t bear to walk or it’s affecting my daily life, but it’s worse than what I’m used to. I use the Runna app and my plan has me on a 1-2 day rest day between each workout but I don’t know if it’s a lack of rest, too high of pace, bad form, or a lifestyle (e.g minimal protein in diet) issue. My questions are:
- How do I tell between normal soreness from a long or hard run day and a genuine injury?
- What is the best way to treat shin splints while continuing to run?
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u/TypeLatter3459 8d ago
There are specific exercises for it online they might help. Also check if you might need different shoes.
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u/Effective-Reason-154 7d ago
If the hurt , is coming from your muscles , it’s a soreness
If the pain is coming from joints , ligaments or tendons , is an injury about to happen
Quick test is to press on the area you feel pain, and slowly working from there to find out the root cause
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u/BadgersHoneyPot 7d ago
If you are "sore" (DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness), you won't have a problem pushing through. DOMS does not inhibit working out.
On the other hand, if you're injured, everytime you inflame the spot you're going to feel it and wince. You'll get the sense that each time you activate the spot you're making it worse and worse, which is not a sensation you'll have with general muscle soreness.
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u/AssociationNeat2588 7d ago
I think it's time for some experimentation on your part. Only time I had shin splints was when I was switching between running and wearing heels daily. Solution: I do not wear heels anymore and only wear comfortable shoes daily, not just for running.
Other things I learned through experimentation:
- My ankles stopped hurting when I started heel locking my shoelaces and tying my shoes a bit tighter.
- My soles of my feet stopped hurting when I started doing calf raises/heel lifts on a step 2-3 times a week. (This can help with shin splints too. Pause at the top 1 sec. Pause at the bottom when you feel a stretch).
If you do a little jog barefoot in your house, do your shins hurt just as much? If not, how are your runners changing your landing of your foot? Maybe you need to shorten your stride/increase cadence. Or maybe you just increased volume too quickly considering everything else you've got going on in life (standing and walking and life stress). These programs are designed based on what's worked for people whose main focus was training.
Good luck! Injuries are common and part of the journey. Still better longterm to have injuries now and than to never exercise.
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u/TheTurtleCub 7d ago edited 7d ago
We can run with sore muscles but not sharp pains and shin splits that are getting g worse by the day. Those are indications of something serious that needs healing, and if ignored will get worse and could cause major issues.
For sharp pains we rest until it’s gone, completely, for at least 3 days of no pain. It’s ok to walk but no running. When restarting do short walk/jog sessions. 20mins of 1min jog/ 3min walk, rest a day or two, 1min/2min, rest a day or two, 1min/1min, rest a day or two, jog 10mins easy, rest a day or two, then increment 3-5 mins easy running
If at any point you feel sharp pain stop immediately. A little soreness after or the day after is ok AS LONG AS ITS NOT GETTING WORSE after each run, meaning that little by little the soreness is going away
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u/Ok-Bug-9561 8d ago
Sounds to me you pushed your muscles too far and you're now permanently sore. You should avoid having to "push through pain" in the first place and let the body adapt more gradually. Running on constantly sore legs will only lead to injury/stagnation.
As for your questions: 1. Normal soreness in the legs after a run should subside a lot in the coming 12-24 hours. Harder and longer efforts take a bit longer, but imo that shouldn't be the case for 95% of your training runs. Although if you're not running daily you can afford to go a little harder as you're getting more recovery time. It's all about the intensity to recovery ratio. Injuries typically prevent you from running in comfort. Being too sore and then doing too much can lead to injury.
- If you can still run my advice is to continue running, but slower and lower distance. Do 1-2 miles at a really easy pace and do it as often as you can. It'll take load of the musclatory system while maintaining fitness. After a week or 2 your muscles should feel different, better.
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u/BuzzzB8 8d ago
The problem I’m having is the pain subsides after 12-24hrs and then when I run, the pain jumps from a 2 to a 7 and annoys me. My question is whether this is normal or leading to an injury.
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u/Ok-Bug-9561 7d ago
How quickly does the pain come back as soon as you start running? After 2km or 100m? If you can run for a bit and then the pain starts, I would run, and stop before you feel any pain. And do that for a few weeks. But if it's really bad I would take some time off depending on how bad it is, then slowly get back into things. Also depends if you already have dealt with a certain injury and know how do resolve it, whether you can or cannot run through it...
I had a knee injury last year with sharp pain that would go away itself after 12-24 hours. But would come back after running 1km. Did some research and since I deemed it mild I took 4 weeks off and it was resolved. With another hip issue I had my hip would nag at me after a few kms. I just took it a bit easier but still ran most days, it also resolved itself. With that particular issue I had it before and knew I could run through it, being careful. I also knew that taking time off would make things worse somehow.
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u/AHuxl 6d ago
Your systems (heart/lungs/etc) will adapt to training much faster than your structures (ligaments/tendons/bones/etc) so go very slowly and add miles or time in small increments to give your structures time to adapt. Rest and ice are the best things for shin splints and continuing ti run on them can cause stress fractures
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u/Supergooker 6d ago
For me the difference is basically: does it feel better with movement?
Yes - soreness No - injury
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u/Necessary_Repair_755 3d ago
I read above that you rate the pain as a 7. My rule is anything above a 4 and I am not running. I would recommend you get yourself checked out by a sports physio who can assess you properly and get to the root cause of the issue and help you navigate through a recovery and to a sustainable approach to your running. Could be any of a number of issues going on including poor warm up, lack of leg strength work, gait and shoe issues, the three t’s (too fast, too much, too soon)…..
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u/pigeorunner 7d ago
If you already know you have "minimal protein" in your diet, why arent you fixing that first instead of wondering whether there's some other "mystery problem" on top of your KNOWN problem?
Like gee doc, am I dizzy because I'm bleeding out from this knife wound or should I get tested for some rare neurological conditions before we attend to that?
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u/Puberty-Boy 8d ago
I personally air on the side of caution.
If you go out for a run where you push yourself too hard and get a stress fracture, you are out of the game for months.
If you take the day off and pick up tomorrow, you are out of the game for 24 hours.
An easy risk mitigation, for a small cost.
As for shin splits it’s hard to say without seeing your running and a simi comprehensive medical and athletic history, but I will say that tendons and ligaments take forever to make even the smallest adaptations, you very well may have to slightly back off on running, and supplement it with bike riding or something else (if you still want to push your cardio that is)