Let's take a few minutes to look at a few running myths and misconceptions. Like the classic 'Running is Bad for Your Knees!' and 'Runners Should Avoid Strength Training'!

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If you spend enough time reading around running, watching videos online about run training and generally existing in the awesome world that is the running community, you’ll hear so much advice. Some of it brilliant. Some of it not so good!

Let’s take a look at some issues that come up a lot.

Ok so first up…

“Runners should avoid strength training as it makes them heavier and therefore slower”

Just not true.

Trust me - done correctly, while strength training for runners will most likely result in a change in body composition and muscle tone, you’re not going to bulk up like a body builder. To do so, you’d need to be eating like a body builder! As most gym-rats know, it’s not how heavy you lift in the gym that bulks you up, it’s what you put in your body between sessions.

Simply put, focusing on strength in the gym (not hypertrophy) and eating a sensible balanced diet (rather than over-eating) will enable you to build strength as a runner without losing your lean, efficient physique.

Next...

“Running is Bad For Your Knees”

Ok so running is super-tough on the body, that’s obvious. In fact, with every stride, as the foot lands, our joints experience multiple times body weight. Surely this constant pounding is bad for your knees.

That logic definitely fuels the argument that so many of us runners hear from our non-running friends!

However there is some research to tell us that the opposite is true, that those who have a history of regular running display a lower prevalence of knee pain than non-runners. As with so much in the research world, further research is needed to fully understand this.

But whatever the mechanism it’s a safe assumption that as long as you’re sensible with your training load, running keeps the muscles surrounding the knee joint in better functional condition. One of the major issues we see in sedentary adults with knee pain is a reconditioning of the muscles around the knee.

How about this one…?

“Runners Don’t Need to Stretch”

Ok, so I actually wrote a full-on article on this one not so long ago. Link in the description!

Usually the conversation here centres around two things:

*Static stretching pre-sport*

and

*Stretching as a means of injury prevention*

When it comes to static stretching, I’d save this predominantly for after your run sessions, focusing more on dynamic stretches and drills pre-run.

In terms of injury prevention though, the science that is often quoted is somewhat limited. Again I wrote an article on exactly this on the blog recently. I’ll leave a link in the description.

My biggest issue is that we can’t just make a blanket judgement call on where stretching in general is good or bad for ALL runners, we’re all dealing with our different physical issues.

Hypermobile runners need to stay right away from stretching in general, while those who spend all day behind a desk every day most likely need to stretch their quads and hip flexors constantly to stop imbalances around the hips causing injury when run training ramps-up.

Even within any given individual runner, there are areas which chronically need stretching, and other areas which simply don't.

Generally speaking, in runners we actually want to see a certain amount of ankle stiffness to provide an efficient transfer of force into the ground. However we want to see lovely flowing range of motion from the hips to provide an efficient stride. In my experience, we often see the opposite!

Listen to your body. If an area feels like it needs to be stretched. Stretch!

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ABOUT ME: I'm a runner, sports rehabilitation specialist and coach based in the UK (Norwich and London).

Since 2007 I've been working with athletes focusing specifically on helping distance runners and triathletes overcome injury and improve performance through developing their individual running technique.

Running biomechanics has become a geeky little passion of mine!

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