"Running is bad for your knees" - A myth busted

This post is dedicated to all you non-runners out there. Yo, you guys rock.

Any time I tell "non-runners" , that I run during my free time(that's how it comes up..What do you do man..Play football [or soccer for Americans], basket-ball, etc?), they all go: 'Oh that's nice, but uh..I think its bad for your knees'. Man, atleast have the decency to put your prejudice as a question: "Don't or do you think its bad for your knees" is much better than "Its bad for the knees. I therefore don't run nor should you."

People who run or jog regularly(with flexibility in runs), have a feel for their runs, care about their form..questions like, "How does my leg feel", constantly come up when you run. Good form is also aesthetically pleasing to look at. People who run also think of running as a sport. Why else would they be doing it? I don't need to lose weight, I need to gain weight if you ask me. But even if you take up running to lose weight( that's the best way to do it), you would soon stop obsessing about losing weight and focus more on enjoying your runs. And running is not as easy as you think. It involves completely surrendering to how your body feels on any particular day. Do you know how hard that is? You want to go out fast today, you can't. Why? Because the body isn't ready. And why is that? Because it hasn't recovered from the fast run yesterday. And how do you know if your body has recovered or not? That's what you call listening to your body.

People who start walking all of a sudden can do it daily without a problem. People who start running all of a sudden and try doing it everyday, end up with a runner's knee. Again why? Because you are not yet sensitive to your body's signs of inability. I understand its tough to know "how your body feels", I have been through it many times, when I have had a lay off. Its always tough to comeback. If you go back to some of my posts, you would understand that. But that doesn't mean you give up. Its a subtle art of deciding what pace you want to run at any given moment during the run and how far to run on each day.
Following a schedule strictly in running is a great recipe for ending up with runner's knee or shin splits


When I started running regulary 3 years back, I frequently sucummbed to shin splits. Why? I committed the classic mistakes of sticking to a schedule. Run every day at the same pace(atleast slow down on a few days). My uncle who walks for 2 hrs every day, would ask me what's the use of running if you can't do it regularly? Here's my answer: Running is a completely different ball-game altogether. I challenge you non-runners. If you think running is easy enough, go out and run. See for yourself if you can run regularly for a month or even two weeks, make progress and not get injured. Running is a sport, the rules are decided by the body. Simple.

Now, the past three months, I haven't run much..Just 2-3 runs per week. But the good thing is, I haven't had a single indication of pain in my legs during these runs so far. If during a run, my legs started feeling heavy and painful, I would just slow down or stop. But almost always slowing down helped. Its always the initial two-three weeks after a long period of non-running which is really painful, since the body is adapting itself to the rigors of running, to the constant pounding the legs has to take, there is also some losing of weight involved so as to get back in 'running shape'. After that initial phase, running becomes really enjoyable, something to look forward to, not something that needs to be done to attain any specific end per se.

Links:
1) Hal Higdon