How to properly load squats and deadlift with shin splinst?

Hello again Barbell Medicine community,

I’m back with another injury question. I’m prepping to enlist in the Navy, down about 30lbs from when I started. Followed the advice last time with back pain, have successfully high bar squatted 400lbs and deadlifted about 365lbs. The deadlift was greatly reduced from my last successful max pre injury, but greatly increased from what I was pulling during the injury.

Anyways, I now have shin splints down both legs. I started progressive interval training for raining to meet my mile time for my PFT. One workout in particular had me in so much pain I could barely put weight on either foot. I’ve since decreased the weight on my squats and deadlift to lessen the load on the injury. I’ve also stopped running for now and started steady state cardio on an air bike.

My question is how should I decide on a proper weight for my lifts and when to start running again? What I understand now is to pretty much go to the point right before it starts to hurt, and increase from that point progressively like any other training, but my main concern is I don’t want to skimp my leg and back training being to conservative, or stall progress by not increasing enough. Any suggestions?

Do squats and deadlifts exacerbate your symptoms? If not, then you can train them normally.

If they do, I would simply select your weight using an RPE-based autoregulation approach to find a load that doesn’t markedly increase your pain symptoms in the subsequent 24-48 hours after training.

Regarding the running question - our podcast on running injuries has you covered, Episode 117.