The Worst Running Advice I’ve Ever Gotten…
THE WORST FROM THE WISEST
My Grandpa was a treasure trove of wisdom, and of course he was – he’d seen and lived through a LOT. He was raised on a farm in western Kansas during the Dust Bowl and Depression, majored in Chemistry, fought in the Korean conflict, raised two kids with my Grandma, started & had great success with multiple businesses, among other life adventures. I could and should, and maybe will eventually, write a book full of the things I learned from him. Of all the free wisdom he dispensed, there really is only one bad piece of advice I can recall.
When I started running in high school, I could tell my Grandpa didn’t quite understand it. Running for the sake of running didn’t make much sense to a man who ran on a farm to chase animals or fish his siblings out of trouble, and ran again in the Army to survive basic training or the coldest winter he’d ever experienced in Pyongyang. He would always tell me, “Runnin’ll ruin your knees, boy!” If he was convinced he was right, he’d repeat it more than once, just to be sure you heard.
Here I am, 20+ years later, and my knees are easily the healthiest joints in my legs. I’ve had handfuls of ankle injuries from basketball and ultimate frisbee, but my knees are in excellent shape!
I hear some version of the old knee OA groaner a lot, so I wanted to clear the air with folks who are actually doing the damn thing, but may be hearing conflicting information.
Running. Is. Safe. For. Your. Knees!
A 2017 meta-analysis by Timmins et al. describing results from 15 studies determined no causal relationship between running and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA). Another meta-analysis from 2017 by Alentorn-Geli et al. reviewed 17 studies which found that only 3.5% of recreational runners develop knee or hip osteoarthritis. Conversely, 10.2% of sedentary, non-runners developed hip or knee OA. At the other end of the spectrum, 13.3% of elite or professional runners developed hip or knee OA. The key? Everything in moderation…unless you just want to sit and play the new Halo (17 year old me is stoked!) or run silly high volume. Choose your own adventure.
(Image obtained from https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2017.0505)
But what if you already have some degree of OA? Should you run? Are you making it worse? Well, you know the drill - find a pro you trust and ask them how you can develop a plan together to start running safely. If you already have OA, there’s no evidence to suggest running will make it worse, so connect with a pro, put in the work, and you’ll be back in it for the long run!
Train smart. Stick with the plan. Your knees will be fine.