“Running is bad for your joints. Stick to low impact activity.”
This is the line delivered to many of my patients by the media, the internet, and even orthopedic doctors. But the reality is that there is really no research to support that, and there is actually research to support that impact is actually better for your joints than none at all.
Of course, overdoing anything is not a great idea, and the research does show that high level athletes who demand extremely high levels of impact on their bodies do have slightly less healthy joints than recreational runners, but their joints were still healthier than those of sedentary people!
Running, walking, hiking, whatever impact activity you engage in, can be extremely beneficial for your health, and can prevent osteoporosis in the lower body joints.
A lot of people feel that they can’t run/walk/hike because of pain syndromes. Others have pain but just run through it, because running is supposed to be painful, right?
Actually…no.
Running is not meant to hurt, and not meant to be a punishment!
In fact, if you are doing anything to punish yourself, that is something to question on a deeper level.
Whatever activity you enjoy- running, hiking, walking- can and should feel good throughout your life span.
However, when we demand symmetrical right to left repetitive movement of our bodies, transitioning from one leg to the other, it is common to develop pain syndromes due to the inherent asymmetries in our body.
We are different right to left. This is an anatomical fact, and a primary tenet of the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI for short). The biggest difference is the position and shape of the diaphragm and how that diaphragm influences our pelvis.
In a nutshell, these asymmetries make us feel more comfortable standing over our right leg.
Our right abdominals become more and more strong, while our left abdominals become weak and lengthened. This has all sorts of implications for your ribcage, pelvis, hips, and everything else above and below your abs. You can read more about these asymmetries here.
This preference for our right side will drive us to create torque in all sorts of areas of our bodies in order to stay over to that side. This happens on a very subtle level but over time these patterns get deeply ingrained and we can get stuck. We can’t figure out why we have pain in our knees, hips, ankles, or neck and shoulders.
This is where PRI comes in. I have taken many courses through the Postural Restoration Institute, and I love the work they do because they acknowledge that we are different right to left. From this more accurate framework, those seemingly random aches and pains start to make sense.
We can work towards restoring balanced side to side and front to back, and pains in all areas of the body start to ease up.
If you want to be a forever runner, hiker, or walker, the key is to stay balanced so as not to overly compress certain joints and develop excess instability in others.
How can you tell if you’re balanced?
Here are some signs that you may have asymmetries present:
- Uneven hip height
- Leg length discrepancies
- Knee, ankle, hip, back, shoulder, neck or jaw pain
- one foot turning out more than the other
- one hip tighter than the other
- One leg more muscular than the other (especially in the front of your thigh)
- Different wear patterns on your shoes (right vs left)
If you suspect that your asymmetries are impacting you, but you want to keep running/hiking/walking into your old age, now is the time to address these problems.
Here is a simple exercise you can do to be more balanced right to left when you hit the trails.
You can also download my FREE Guide: Top 5 Injury Prevention Tips for Runners below!
References:
Eduard A. The Association of Recreational and Competitive Running With Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JOSPT Published Online: May 31, 2017 Volume 47 Issue 6 Pages373-390 https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2017.7137
