What If Running Was Good For Your Knees?

As a counterpoint to our last blog, we offer an article from the New York Times that indicates exercise might be good for you. In fact, it contradicts what most of us think is an obvious statement about running; it’s bad for your knees.

Can Running Help Your Knees?

I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years that no longer run. The number one reason they’ll cite for giving it up is bad knees, a recommendation that usually came from their doctor. According to this article, the latest studies from the world of biomechanics are telling us exactly the opposite; running can help protect your knees. As a life-long runner, this is surprising to me as well.

Gretchen Reynolds states,

“But despite entrenched mythology to the contrary, runners don’t seem prone to degenerating knees. An important 2008 study, this one from Stanford University, followed middle-aged, longtime distance runners (not necessarily marathoners) for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1984, when most were in their 50s or 60s. At that time, 6.7 percent of the runners had creaky, mildly arthritic knees, while none of an age-matched control group did. After 20 years, however, the runners’ knees were healthier; only 20 percent showed arthritic changes, versus 32 percent of the control group’s knees. Barely 2 percent of the runners’ knees were severely arthritic, while almost 10 percent of the control group’s were. “We were quite surprised,” says Eliza Chakravarty, an assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. ‘Our hypothesis going in had been that runners, because of the repetitive pounding, would develop more frequent and more severe arthritis.’”

It does make sense when we examine how most bodily processes work. Your body responds to stress by growing stronger, which is exactly how we train our bodies to perform better. However, it’s long been assumed that these processes contribute long term damage to our skeletal structure. We’ve always (modern always anyway) known that bone and connective tissue density can change and it can get weaker and stronger. We just lacked any science that showed us how dramatically and assumed things which shocked the body as repetitively as running would over task our recuperative abilities.

This article proposes that we are just beginning to understand the body’s true recovery processes and lends credence to the Nietzsche-ian “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

pic: suzy hamilton is happy that her knees will out last yours.