Why do we think or claim we know things that we actually do not know? Do you know your running facts from fiction?
MYTH: RUNNING IS BAD FOR YOUR KNEES.
People assume that pounding the ground with your legs with so much force must be jarring to your joints. But why would an activity humans evolved to do be bad for our bodies? If the activity were harmful to your knees, evolution would have eliminated the ability to run a long time ago because only traits that confer an advantage survive.
Research doesn’t support that running is bad for your knees. People who run have no greater incidence of joint problems or osteoarthritis than people who don’t run. If you have a family history of joint degeneration—if both your parents have had knee replacements or if you already have knee problems when you move a certain way or do certain activities—running can bring that genetic predisposition or those latent issues to the forefront. But running per se isn’t the underlying cause of your joint problems. As long as you have healthy knees, running isn’t bad for them.
MYTH: YOUR LUNGS LIMIT YOUR ABILITY TO RUN.
Lung capacity is primarily influenced by body size, with bigger people having larger lung capacities. The best runners in the world are quite small people, with characteristically small lungs. There is no relationship between lung capacity and how fast someone runs a 5K. While many runners take deeper breaths in an attempt to get in more oxygen, the blood is already nearly maximally saturated with oxygen, even while running a race.
MYTH: YOU RACE FASTER BY TRAINING FASTER.
As a runner, don’t do workouts to practice running faster. Increase the volume you run at specific speeds to improve the physiological characteristics that will enable you to run faster in the future. That’s why even slow, aerobic running makes you faster—because of the many physiological characteristics it enhances. Rather than run faster, make workouts more difficult by increasing duration of each rep, increasing number of reps, or decreasing the time of recovery intervals.
MYTH: STRETCHING PREVENTS RUNNING INJURIES, REDUCES SORENESS, AND IMPROVES RUNNING PERFORMANCE.
Most runners are told that they need to stretch, primarily because running makes your muscles tight and inflexible, and stretching can combat or prevent the inflexibility caused by running. People view inflexibility as a bad thing. But why would running cause an adaptation that is bad for running? All of the other adaptations that running causes are good for running. So why would tight, inflexible muscles be the only adaptation that running causes that is bad for running? That doesn’t make sense.
Other animals don’t stretch before or after they run. When a lion in the wild sees its food running by, it doesn’t pause to stretch for a few minutes before chasing after its food. The lion can get up from its lazy, midday nap and immediately chase after a gazelle, and it never gets Achilles tendonitis or iliotibial band syndrome. Unfortunately, you won’t run faster or longer or prevent a running injury just because you bend down to touch your toes before you run.
