How do these runners knees not succumb to problems? Genetic lottery? I run 6 miles on a treadmill with zero drop & pronation inserts, stretch withe a calf wedge & still feel like I'm flying close to the sun with my knees.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095814/
>History of Running is Not Associated with Higher Risk of Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis: A Cross-Sectional Study from the Osteoarthritis Initiative
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5179322/
>Running does not lead to knee osteoarthritis, may protect people from developing disease, experts say
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141116094058.h...
When I was doing triathlon, I was in the Clydesdale division because I had a physique more like a football player than a runner. I've often wondered if my leg/knee problems of today are casually related to my choice to seriously do an exercise against body type.
I had patellar chondromalacia for about a year after one of my Ironmans and I couldn't get it to go away. I started doing a mat pilates and it went away within a could weeks.
Then I had back problems kinda like sciatica, and that was solved with the leg presses, but I feel the leg presses helped make the knees even healthier.
The other issue with running as a triathlete, especially a clydesdale, is that you may be excessively heel planting. It can be hard to transition to midfoot planting for a big dude, but it is much much easier on your knees.
You'd have to do some sprinting on your toes, very unorthodox for triathlons, but even then it is very hard to change the fundamental style of running.
This is paid but also very good. https://uphillathlete.com/product/at-home-strength-training-...
The main thing 90% of people will benefit from is learning to activate their glutes, then strengthening their glutes. Clamshells are a great place to start.
A lot of people hurt their knees because their glutes don’t activate and are weak from sitting all day. This forces them to become quad dominate, which puts more strain on the knees.
for running, lowering your pace to "just above walking" speed will help you run much longer, and develop the muscles needed
1. Run slower. Then run slower again.
2. Run a shorter distance/time and gradually build up over time (weeks/months).
3. Lose weight (on average, people are overweight). If you're underweight, then eat more.
Now that I'm in my 40's I find if I get knee pain, its almost certainly tight muscles around the knee.
That means I haven't' been stretching, drinking water, foam rolling or squatting and deadlifting enough. As you get older I find almost all ailments are a sign of not taking care of your body, not a sign of age related decay.
0. Unless you've been running for a long time or done some other endurance sport, your aerobic system is probably in terrible shape. Even if you are already a runner, it's likely your aerobic system is still in terrible shape. If your pace zones don't match up with your heart rate zones, e.g. you are out of breath no matter how heard you run and your HR shoots up the moment you start running then you need to improve your aerobic system. If you are stressing yourself on every run then you have a much higher chance of injury. On most of my runs I go <Z2, which is about 6.30 min/mile for me at the moment but could easily do a marathon at that pace and not be too stressed about it. I can breath through my nose at that pace and assuming I warmed up sufficiently, then breathing feels very easy and I can carry on a conversation with my running partners. Recovery feels almost instant after stopping. If your aerobic system is poor then you'll be dipping into anerobic territory which stresses the body a great dealand lengthens recovery time. I only work anerobically about 20% of the time. Teach your body to be a better fat burner, your aerobic system will thank your for it and you'll feel generally better overall in daily life. Learn about the aerobic threshold and the anerobic threshold. The secret to fast, injury free, easy running is to push your aerobic and anerobic thresholds as high as possible, so you can run fast whilst burning fat and not accumulating excessive levels of blood lactate. You can achieve this by doing most of your training below your aerobic threshold and the remainder at or above your anerobic threshold. Determining your aerobic thrshold can be tricky - some people say it's the pace you can run at when breathing through your nose. If you have a blood lactate monitor then it's the pace/HR when lactate starts appearing in the blood samples. It's maybe easier to do a metabolic test though. Read Phil Maffetone's book to learn more - it's a good introduction.
1. Make sure your form is good. The main things are: 1) don't overstride. If you overstride, you'll land on your heel instead of mid/fore foot and put quite a bit of stress through your legs. Instead, increase cadance and lower stride length so you are landing mid foot. 2) You see a lot of people running with their ass sticking out, which pulls centre of gravity backwards and makes running much more difficult - overstresses quads, shins and knees. Your centre of gravity should be directly over the foot in the stance phase. Try to make sure hips are forward and level. There's tonnes of stuff on the internet about running form. I think you can get most of the way there by increasing cadence and shortening stride. Running should feel like you are gliding over the road... People walking should be surprised when you beast it past them at 5 minute mile pace because your feet hardly make any noise when they touch the ground.
2. Make sure that all your muscles groups are strong and balanced, in pcarticular the glutes. Most people have weak glutes, specifically the glute medius, which will cause the knee to bend inwards when running, resulting in quite a bit of pain as it compresses the knee on one side and stretches it on the other. Many runners think strength isn't relevant for running but it really is. You need to keep on top of it and do strengthening exercises at least a few times a week. There's tonnes of blogs on the web which teach you the kinds of exercises you need to do. E.g. side leg raises, clam shells, squats, single leg dead lifts, glute bridge, marching bridge...
3. Recover properly. Any "tightness" after a run is probably because you've overworked some muscle group. Learn how to do self massage and maybe use a theragun or similar device. Cold therapy also helps. Try to sleep well (no alcohol before bed, no food three hours before bed, no caffeine in afternoon) and if you don't feel great or are ill then either don't run or do only active recovery that day. From experience you are way more likely to injure yourself on a day where you don't feel great.
4. Whenever you are going to do a hard session, warm up properly with some light aerobic exercise and mobility exercises. You want to make sure all the main muscle groups are activated and ready to go before you run. On slow days this is less of an issue. A hard session is anything above Z2. Always run at least 5 minutes in Z1 before starting any run. Alsways do at least 5 minutes in Z1 at the end of a run.
5. Diet. Don't eat refined carbs or any sugars. Focus on a high fat diet and only eat cars when you need to fuel before a hard session or race.
6. Up training distance gradually. Track things like resting heart rate at night or HRV to check whether you are over-doing it or not. Gut feel for this is probably more useful though. If you feel exhausted or you get pain then cut back on running and do more strength exercises.
Point 0 is one that I've had to learn and re-learn several times, because it's a hard pill to swallow. When you don't have much time to train (and I've never felt like I had time for more than 20 miles per week as an adult), it's tempting to feel like you can make up for it by training harder. Oddly, the Army actually teaches that we should run no more than three times per week, and no more than a few miles, but to make those runs faster, to reduce injuries. I don't know why. Whenever I've gotten hurt, it was due to trying to run faster than I was ready for.
Point 1 reminds me of my favorite passage in Daniels' Running Formula: "If a group of beginners were required to start running 100 miles a week, two things would probably occur: Many runners would hurt themselves, and many who didn't get hurt would adjust to taking quicker, lighter steps." I read that book after my first ten years of running and made a radical change to a forefoot strike with something closer to his recommended 180 steps per minute.
Carbs are fantastic, eat them.
Sugar is good, take some during long runs and hard training sessions to aid recovery. It’s also absolutely necessary as a fuel source during long races.
Best i can do is 5km @ 7:15 and i'll be dead running 190bpm+ for the whole duration (and sometimes 200)
must be the genetics.
1. Genetics that allow their bodies to push harder and recover faster (at the elite level) than an average human.
2. Years upon years of building up resilience by increasing distance, time, intensity in a semi-controlled manner.
That said, there's millions of people worldwide who run far below the elite level whose bodies don't crumble to bits. It's a total myth that running destroys your knees.
I mean, how do I know if it's the bacon, the coffee, or the cheese, etc?
Switched to trail running and it's been a life saver. It's a lot easier pace, but the hills/mountains really help stabilize the glutes and core. I'm running longer/further and still close to my 5k times from being a road runner
In the first phase of my running career, I used to struggle with achilles tendon problems, nothing any shoe or podiatrist or orthopedist was able to properly diagnose or fix.
Eventually I saw a PT. The PT clued me in that I had a weak core and bad biomechanics. To use an analogy: I was like a car with an out of alignment suspension. And I had been trying to fix it by changing the tires. When what I needed to do was fix the suspension. The suspension is everything above your feet, but in particular your hips and core. And mine were in terrible shape from years of sitting before I started running in my late twenties.
So I had to re-invent myself as a runner.
Originally I started with the exercises the PT gave me for my hips and core. I got rid of my motion-control shoes and my prescription orthopedic inserts. I switched to just a basic cushioned shoe. Shoes are like unsprung mass on a vehicle. I didn't want any more weight on my feet than I absolutely needed, especially since I wear size 11-12 shoes.
I started to pay attention to and work on my form. I found the PT exercises boring so I ended up joining a Crossfit gym for a couple years which worked for me, but I don't recommend Crossfit as generic advice since Crossfit gym and coach quality varies widely. But it worked for me.
With my form and strength in better shape, it enabled me to start putting in more mileage. Whereas previously I couldn't run more than 35 miles/week w/o risking injury, I was now able to comfortably run 65-75 miles/week. That allowed me to take on the types of training routines that I needed to achieve some of my time and distance goals.
Now, I know some folks who never cross train and don't get injured and maybe they just naturally have good form.
But for me it was something I had to work at. And the best kind of professional I know for advising you on this is a PT who is themselves a runner and works with runners.
The image I keep in mind when I'm thinking about running form is Mo Farah's:
https://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/14th+IAAF+World+Athletic...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxf1gEkm_EE
Here's some of the exercises he does to have and maintain that form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx2i6TKMi1A
And for comparison, here's Ed Whitlock in his 80s:
https://mindmotionmatter.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ed-runn...
How do you expect to have strong knees without squats, lunges, etc? It's like saying you're bad at math and expect to magically get better at it, without actually practising math.
Even doing a few sets of squats every day is better then nothing, and for some reason most newbie runners think they can do nothing, with zero sports background, and still run every other day.