#FAQF... "Running? Are you crazy?"

 “ummm…running? Are you crazy?! That is SO bad for your hips and knees!!” … This is one of the most common questions that I have gotten over the years and there is finally fantastic research to support my answer to this question. Yay!
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For 15+ years my life consisted of changing from one uniform to the next in the car, unlacing cleats and lacing up spikes, traveling around the midwest from one court to the next field. Blissful chaos. Amidst the chaos though, there was one constant. Running
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Running is so pure. So free. And so instinctually human. Hard. Yes. Tiring. Yes. But human
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If you take any able bodied human being, from anywhere in the world, she will naturally know how to run. It is a necessary survival skill. We do not teach people to run the way we teach riding a bike or swimming, we just do it. Can we say the same about any of the other “cardio” workouts we do? So how can something so inherently human be SO bad?
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I believe that it is not the movement itself that is bad, but rather poor quality of movement that is bad. My greatest skill is my ability to watch and analyze movements. To determine where your inefficiencies lie. Finding areas your body is not dissipating force how it should. I refuse to blame the exercise or the sport but rather the inability to synergistically transfer energy from one position to the next. And finally, there is some data to back this up.
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A recent Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (the highest quality of evidence based medicine research) that complied data from 125,810 individuals has shown that control subjects (non-runners) had an overall prevalence of hip and knee OA of 10.2%. Recreational runners… 3.5%.
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Running is not the problem. Inefficient movement patterns are. Scientific encouragement for you to take the time to see a movement specialist rather than just attempting a video you see someone else do online. Please reach out with any questions or if you need help getting started- AAW