The shin bone
Tibia · tibia
The thick weight-bearing bone at the front of your lower leg.
What it does
The tibia takes the weight passed down from your thigh and delivers it to your ankle. Its flat top forms the lower half of the knee, and the bump on the inside of your ankle is its lower end. Its front edge runs just under the skin, which is why a knock on the shin hurts so much.
Surprising fact
The front of your shin has almost no muscle or fat covering it, so you are hitting bone directly when you bang it on a coffee table.
Why it matters
Runners who build up mileage too quickly often get shin splints, an ache along the inner edge of this bone. Because it sits so close to the surface, the tibia is also one of the bones most often broken in sport.
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Open in the 3D atlas · Suggest a correction · Not medical advice.
3D models: Z-Anatomy & BodyParts3D (CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2.1 JP). Card text CC BY 4.0.