UrbanUpdate

You’ve heard it before: Running is bad for your knees. All that pounding! Humans weren’t meant for it. Try something low impact, like swimming or yoga, detractors say. And now that everyone’s pulling on their shorty-shorts for summertime jogs, we here at GQ Fitness found ourselves wondering, is the myth true? Is running _really _bad for your knees?

Well, apparently our subscription to the academic journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Ercise has lapsed, because we learned that only last year this fine publication released the largest long-term study of runners concluding that running won’t increase your risk of arthritis compared to otherforms of ercise, as has been warned since time immemorial. The study tracked nearly 75,000 runners over 7.1 years and found "no evidence that running increases the risk of osteoarthritis," even—get this—"including participation in marathons."

So why exactly, isn’t hitting the pavement wreaking havoc on your knees? "Running does not involve a lot of knee bending and it’s fairly linear," says Paul Williams, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and lead author of the study. "Sure, your joints are subjected to more pounding," he tells us, "but your body is responding to that in a positive way."

What this study posits—unlike a smaller 2010 University of San Francisco study that found marathons were linked to cartilage degeneration in knees—is that your body compensates for the stress you’re putting on it. While you _are _pounding your knees, it’s not as bad as we’ve always thought. Running—whether it’s 26.2 miles or 2.62—promotes cartilage thickening. Cartilage _thinning _is what leads to osteoarthritis.

Additionally, researchers found a strong correlation between BMI and arthritis. So, the lower your BMI, the lower your chances of arthritis. It’s no coincidence that runners are often skinnier, which might help explain their lower rates of knee arthritis.

Williams concedes that he and his team went into their research believing the anti-running truthers who have espoused the distance-running-is-the-devil myth for years. "There’s a logical thing that says it should be bad for your knees," he says.

But it’s simple: Your body—especially if you ercise regularly—adapts. "We’re not cars," Williams says. "The more you run your car, you’re wearing out the bearings. The difference between a car and a person is it appears that when you’re doing that pounding and such, the body is actually putting more resources into your joints."

So, go wild. Maybe even run harder than ever. You’re not going to break down on the side of the road like some rusted-out old Pinto.

"Think of it this way: Why isn’t running bad for your heart?" Williams says. "You get out there and you run and you’re putting more stress on your heart. Why do runners have lower risk of heart attack? Because the body is actually adapting to the activity."

*** Editor’s Note:** This story has been updated from its original version to more fully explain the results of Williams’ study, which you can view here.

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