Running is bad for my knees right?

This is a common thing we hear that people are told but the data would suggest otherwise. A study performed in 2008 presented knee MRIs of 7 runners who had previously had MRIs for a separate study before running the Vienna Marathon 11 years previous in 1997. The contrast between the MRIs showed no new damage in the knee joints of the 6 subjects who continued to run since the Marathon in 1997. "In contrast, the only person who had given up long distance running showed severe deterioration in the intra-articular structures of his knee" the author wrote. 

Now 7 subjects isn't the most comprehensive study. However a larger study with 45 runners and 53 non runners performed by Stanford University also in 2008, took regular X-Rays of their subjects over an 18 year period. The results showed that 20% of the runners had developed arthritis in the knee compared to 32% of non runners. 

Now what does this mean? Running definitely isn't for everyone and we shouldn't just grab the first pair of runners we can find and start running a marathon to save our knees! The reason we present this is if you have been told in the past that you should stop running as its bad for your knees you can now offer some studies that would suggest otherwise. If you want to start running there are a lot of great programs in town, particularly at Runners Soul, that start the introduction to running in a healthy format, so that you will avoid overload injuries.

If you hate running, well that is OK too, your knees aren't doomed because of it. Exercise in whatever form works for you is going to help immensely. Anything that gets the joints moving is going to help due to the synovial fluid that will be secreted as this happens. Think of this as the joints WD40!