Can Running Actually Be Good for Your Knees?

If you're a runner, I'm sure you've heard the same "concern" from non-runners: "You'd better quit running - you're going to kill your knees!"

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a millions times! There are days in which my joints hurt and I think, "Maybe they're right!" But there are other days when my body feels terrific - and I think the naysayers are just saying it because they don't run themselves! Ha!

I recently came across an article by Tara Parker-Hope on the New York Times Web site titled: Can Running Actually Help Your Knees? She brings up some very interesting studies about running and the impact (pun intended) on knees.

Parker-Hope cites a study from Stanford University that seems to indicate runners are NOT prone to degeneration of the knees!

She says, "Instead, recent evidence suggests that running may actually shield somewhat against arthritis, in part because the knee develops a kind of motion groove. A group of engineers and doctors at Stanford published a study in the February issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it. But if this exquisite balance is disturbed, usually by an injury, the loading mechanisms shift, the moving parts of the knee are no longer in their accustomed alignment and a “degenerative pathway” seems to open. The cartilage, like an unbalanced tire, wears away. Pain, tissue disintegration and, eventually, arthritis can follow."

In fact, Ross Tucker, a physiologist in South Africa and co-author of the new book “The Runner’s Body: How the Latest Exercise Science Can Help You Run Stronger, Longer and Faster,” says the "biggest predictor of injury is previous injury.” Hence, one of the best defenses against suffering a first knee injury, or any further knee injuries, is to participate in targeted strength training. Tucker says, "The hip stabilizers, quads, hamstrings and core must all be strong enough. As soon as there is weakness, some other muscle or joint must take over, and that’s when injuries happen.”

Click here to read the entire article. And for you runners, it will give you something to tell those naysayers!