In recent years, with the rapid rise of running, disputes have followed, among which "running injury" is the most concerned, and the most concerned is whether running hurts the knee.

20 16 China runner survey shows that more than 80% of runners have suffered from injuries. In fact, according to statistics, running has the highest proportion of injuries in all track and field events, and among many running injuries, "knee injury" is one of the most common injuries encountered by runners.

As a result, the rumor that "running hurts your knees" has become rampant, and even "running only hurts your knees" has become a "gold medal to avoid running" in many people's minds. Later, the knee injury caused by running was simply called "running knee". Look, using the word running as the prefix of injury is already too serious.

In fact, no matter what kind of exercise, with the increase of exercise volume and intensity, it is difficult to have no minor injuries and illnesses over the years.

Why is it always the "knee" that gets hurt?

Knee joint is the largest and most complicated joint in human body, which plays an important role. Good body posture should be that the hips, knees and ankles are in a straight line. But when the bone structure is asymmetrical, problems will arise. Asymmetry of feet, ankles or hips can also affect knees.

In life, as long as you open your legs, you will use your knees. Knee plays a vital role in bearing gravity, so it is more vulnerable to injury than other body joints. According to the survey, knee injuries account for 55% of all sports injuries, including running, cycling, swimming, football and basketball.

From the injury mechanism, sports injury can be divided into acute injury and overuse injury. Acute injury is sudden, as far as knee joint is concerned, such as ligament tear; Overuse injuries gradually occur, such as patellofemoral joint syndrome and iliotibial tract syndrome.

Generally speaking, the so-called "running knee" mainly refers to "iliotibial tract syndrome", and everyone's initial impression of it is the pain on the outside of the knee joint.

In addition, in addition to the lateral pain of the knee joint, the following symptoms may also be the manifestations of iliotibial tract syndrome:

When going up and down stairs and squatting in and around the kneecap, the kneecap feels weak or unstable. When you bend or stretch your knees, you will make a rubbing or clicking sound. Although the kneecaps are soft to the touch, and the percentage of runners' knee injuries is so high, it does not mean that it is reasonable to think that running will inevitably hurt their knees just because runners often get knee injuries, which is extremely arbitrary and one-sided.

In fact, there are many reasons for knee injury, such as meniscus injury, synovitis, patellar tendinitis and so on. Knee pain after running is often caused by overload of exercise intensity, resulting in articular cartilage and meniscus injury.

Although the human body has a certain ability to repair itself, slight pain and injury can be recovered after a period of rest and maintenance. However, if you are overworked for a long time without knowing it, the cartilage of the knee joint will not get enough time to repair, so over time, it may cause joint degeneration and induce arthritis.

And the truth is true. According to statistics, about 50%-70% of runners' running injuries are overworked injuries.

Therefore, the problem of "running hurts the knee" is specifically whether running will lead to excessive use of knee joint tissue.

In fact, running may encounter various problems of knee joint injury, and the direct cause is overuse, that is, running too much, having too little rest, running posture deviation and insufficient muscle strength, which leads to the exercise load exceeding the adaptability of knee joint.

Because the structure of knee joint is very complicated and the injury mechanism is also very complicated, from the point of view of sports mechanics, the thigh muscles contract repeatedly during running, which drives the knee joint to bend and straighten repeatedly. Especially when exercisers are overweight, exercise for a long time or exercise intensity is too high, the patella, tibia and femur will bear too much pressure, which will cause knee joint injury.

Therefore, as long as you run moderately, you will generally not cause knee injury.

Running not only doesn't hurt your knees, but also strengthens them. Even running won't hurt your knees, but it will also make your knees stronger and reduce the probability of arthritis.

According to the report published by the international authoritative medical journal 2065438+June 2007, the incidence of arthritis in sedentary people is 10.2%, while that in fitness runners is only 3.5%.

Let's look at another data:

20 14 in a study, Dr. Grace Xiao-Wei Lo of Baylor Medical College in the United States found that, regardless of age, regular running not only does not increase the risk of knee osteoarthritis, but also reduces the risk of knee pain. The probability of osteoarthritis is 22.8% for those who keep running habits for a long time, and 29.8% for those who don't run. What do you mean?

Even if you run properly, you won't hurt your knees, and the chances of suffering from knee arthritis are less than those who don't have exercise habits. This is because regular exercise can properly stimulate articular cartilage, promote metabolism, and at the same time synovial fluid can flow around the joints, which plays a role in lubrication and nutrition.

On the contrary, if you don't exercise for a long time, your joints will lose their protection and the chances of joint injury will naturally increase.

In addition, in order to find out whether running hurts the knee or not, even the BBC, which exists as a documentary, specially filmed a video, which was verified and analyzed through rigorous scientific experiments.

In this documentary called "The Truth of Fitness", the host of BBC made an experiment with himself, with the purpose of testing the pressure on his knees during walking and running.

Just like the scene when shooting various sci-fi blockbusters in Hollywood, the host is covered with various sensors and uses motion capture technology. In order to see how the body moves clearly, the host then walks back and forth and runs back and forth under the supervision of the computer, and so on.

After the test, the next step is the much-anticipated conclusion analysis. Scientists got two curves, the red one shows the effect on the feet when running, and as a result, as most people think, the effect on the knees is obviously greater when running.