Bruce Springsteen was Right – “Baby, we WERE born to Run.”

Everybody’s out on the run tonight

But there’s no place left to hide…

Come on with me, tramps like us

Baby we were born to run…

(Springsteen B,)

I often hear that running, especially on the road, is “bad for you.” That distance running causes osteoarthritis of the knees and hips and degeneration of the discs in the lower back.

But is the belief that distance running wears your joints out based on fact?

The evidence would seem to suggest otherwise.

A review by Cymet and Sinkov in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, highlights the lack of evidence that running is bad for your joints. In fact their opinion is-

‘ the preponderance of data seems to indicate that moderate levels of running do not increase the risk of osteoarthritis of the knees and hips for healthy people and this activity might even have a protective effect.”

What many people overlook is that the human body is self healing and adapts readily to stresses placed upon it so it should be no surprise that tissues like muscles and the cartilage in our joints will adapt and strengthen to loads placed upon it, like running.

A study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, by Chakravarty et al, stated that-

‘Data suggest that long distance running may not be associated with increased progression of knee osteoatrhitis in the absence of knee injury, obesity, proprioceptive or poor muscle tone.’