Running Not Only Doesn’t Ruin Your Knees, But May Help Them

One of the most persistent knee pain myths is that, if you're a runner, the sport will eventually exact its due and lead to sore, aching joints. If you run long enough, the pessimists warn, you’ll pay the price.

A recent study (the results of which were presented at the American College of Rhematology’s annual meeting) came to a much different conclusion.

Namely, 29.8 percent of non-runners in the study had symptomatic osteoarthritis compared with 22.8 percent of the runners (I have to assume they controlled for weight in their calculations, as that’s a Statistics 101 sort of thing to remember to do.)

The study was huge (2,683 people, who had an average age of 64.5), which is good, but it did have a kind of squishy longitudinal component. Anyone who was a regular runner at some stage in their life, even if it was only between the ages of 12 and 18, was tagged as a “runner.” That can be problematic, as anyone knows who remembers my analysis in the book of one longitudinal study in particular. Still, this would not be the first study to suggest running is beneficial for knee joints, so I think the conclusion makes sense.

One of the study’s authors does raise a caveat: “This does not address the question of whether or not running is harmful to people who have pre-existing knee OA,” according to Grace Hsiao-Wei Lo.

But that’s okay. That’s a lesser issue. Running generally isn’t a good idea if you already have osteoarthritis in your knees, especially if it’s painful (there are better activities that are lower impact on the joints). The good news is that evidence increasingly shows that running doesn’t cause that osteoarthritis.