Introduction

The goal of this post is to speak to those of you who might have a desire, even a faint notion, that you’d like to run but are hesitant or scared to try. It’s likely the fear or hesitation you’re experiencing came from something someone said or a bad experience you had. If you dread running farther than your mailbox, this post is for you. Running can be incredibly healthful for the brain and body when we do it right. My hope with this post is that a bit of myth busting and some sound advice on moderation will make it more likely you’ll have a positive running experience if you do decide to try.

You were born to run.

As Christopher McDougall so aptly described in his book Born to Run, humans are the best runners on the planet. Our upright stature provides a tremendous mechanical advantage for our diaphragm (big breathing muscle), which allows us to deliver huge amounts of oxygen to our working muscles and offload tons of CO2 to keep them fresh. This is the metabolic equivalent of a high pressure shower with a well functioning drain – always plenty of hot water for your washing needs, and never any of that gross stagnant stuff pooling at the bottom to ruin your steamy enjoyment. In addition to strong breathing muscles, humans have a tremendously high concentration of sweat glands, which allow us to offload copious amounts of heat through sweating. This unprecedented ability to sweat means we can run hard, even in warm climates, and not overheat our vital organs (as long as we replace some water and sodium from time to time). Another uniquely human feature that helps us run so well is our highly developed brain, which (with practice) allows us to override noxious physical stimuli that would cause less intelligent creatures to quit. These features developed over centuries of natural selection because, prior to the development of sophisticated weapons and tools, humans would literally chase a gazelle until it collapsed and became dinner. Sure, none of you reading this have any desire to run until you can have gazelle for dinner, but the point is – you
could. You were born to run.

Women Can Run, Too!

Given our natural aptitude for running, it is perhaps not surprising that humans eventually took up running for sport, health, and recreation. In 1896 the first Olympic marathon took place in Athens. After the success of the olympic marathon, the first Boston Marathon was held in spring of 1897. These male-only events grew in popularity over the early part of the 20th century, with marathon races popping up in cities across North America and Europe during this time. It wasn’t until years later in 1968 that women were finally permitted to participate in marathon events, and it took another nearly 20 years after that until the women’s marathon was added at the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles. The nearly 100 year gap between the introduction of the men’s and women’s marathon events at the olympics reflects perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions ever to plague the world of running – the belief that running is bad for women’s reproductive health. We now have copious amounts of research to show that the idea that running has any negative impact on women’s reproductive health is false, so we won’t spend time belabouring that point here. But nonetheless, I bring it up as an important representation of how significantly beliefs about running can impact running behaviour. The belief that running was bad for women, which was never soundly grounded in science, prevented millions of women from running for nearly a hundred years!

“Running will wear my joints out” – Fact or Fiction?

The idea that running is bad for women isn’t floating around out there in a pervasive way in most of the world today, so let’s turn our attention to some other thoughts and beliefs that might deter people from running today. Firstly, the idea that “running will wear my joints out”. There’s no refuting the fact that running on planet Earth puts mechanical stress on our joints. Without going too far down the physics rabbit hole, the basics are this: earth spins —> causes gravitational field —> makes humans heavy. So, unless you’ve got Elon Musk and Space-X on speed dial or have an alter-G treadmill handy, your joints will be experiencing strain when you run. In the past, it was assumed that this type of strain had a negative effect on joint health.

This was perhaps a reasonable assumption. After all if we think about repeatedly rubbing and pounding things together (rocks, sticks, blocks of cheese… use whatever imagery works for you), generally we will see them break down. The problem with this thinking is extending the way these inanimate objects respond to stress to the human body. Unlike the desecrated cheese in the example above, when we load human tissue, it actually gets stronger (Wolff’s law 101). Thanks to advancements in modern research and statistical analysis, recent reviews of research have demonstrated this to be true. If we look at huge groups of people and compare the tissues of recreational runners to non-runners, the recreational runners have lower incidence of hip and knee osteoarthritis than non-runners (Alentorn-Geri, 2017). Another powerful study looked at MRI findings evaluating cartilage of runners compared to non-runners and found no negative effects on knee cartilage for runners (Khan et al., 2022). Human bones are not cheese.

But, but, but…I was told I have bad knees

Even if you believe me on that profound statement, maybe there’s still a part of you assuming that there’s something about you as an individual that means you can’t or shouldn’t run. In my practice as a physio I often hear things like, “I’ve had bad knees since I was a kid, so I can’t run”. Statements like this are frustrating, because it likely means that a health professional failed you somewhere along the way. At some point, someone who you trusted to help you get better when you were hurt, planted a thought virus – they told you you should stop doing an activity that was causing you pain, rather than help you figure out how you could continue doing it safely and with less pain. They spent their time telling you about things you shouldn’t do, rather than showing you things you could do to get better. In past years, this was fairly common – we didn’t know what we didn’t know. But if you are reading this and are currently experiencing this from your health care provider, ask for more, search for more! Running and sport participation can bring about all kinds of tissue pain and soreness if we start too quickly, do too much of it, or don’t balance it with other movements, but these are all things a good physiotherapist can address. There are very few types of knee and joint pain that can’t be improved upon with the right help and some energy and effort on your part, so don’t give up on yourself if you haven’t had the right help yet.

Benefits of Running

If you’re still reading, maybe I’ve convinced you that running isn’t going to cause your joints to spontaneously combust, and that even if you’ve had some running or other-cause injuries in the past, that you’re not a lost cause. But there are likely still some of you out there who just don’t see yourselves as runners. Perhaps that’s because you feel you don’t look a certain way, don’t have certain body type, or are past a certain age that someone has deemed “over the hill” by running standards. To all of that I say, we need to be flexible in how we define the idea of a runner. By literal definition, a runner is simply: one who runs. It doesn’t matter how far, how fast, how gracefully, or how often. Two steps, two laps, two kilometres – still a runner. The act of running has tremendous health benefits for humans, including but not limited to: promotion of bone density, development of muscular strength and endurance, cardiovascular and pulmonary conditioning, social participation, and mood-boosting neurotransmitter release. There is no other activity with a list of benefits so long, that only costs you a pair of shoes from time to time. So if you’ve had a bad experience with running in the past, injury or lack of consistency, find a good physio or someone who you trust who can help you do it the right way – gradually, with a strong foundation, and in a way that works for you as an individual. You too, were born to run.

Stay Tuned For More!

If you enjoyed this post, stay tuned for future posts in this series describing the specifics of how a physiotherapist could help you run successfully, including: strength and mobility training to prepare the body for running, strength training to improve running performance, and how we can use Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered insoles to get great data about features of your unique running style that might be helping or hindering your running performance.

Written by: Louisa Physiotherapist

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We’ll help you pick the right solution for your needs so you can start running, get back to running, or achieve any other fitness and mobility goals.