A piece of good news for those who decide to become runners later in life.
A recent study in the British Journal of Medicine discovered that distance running for middle age beginners did not cause more damage to your knees but may actually refurbish them by reducing an already existing wear and tear. Marathon Running May Be Good for Your Knees. For a Physical Therapy practice involved in Sports Rehabilitation for runners, the article is invaluable.
A surprising finding for health care professionals involved in Sports Physical Therapy.
Researchers followed a group of novice runners during their preparation for the London Marathon. MRI scans were performed before they started training for the marathon and after the event. A surprising finding was that some damages they saw on the first scan unexpectedly got better in the post-marathon studies. How it is accomplished on the cellular level remains uncertain. Possibly, by generating and releasing endorphin-like chemicals or increasing the stability of the joint through improved neuromuscular control. On the negative note, there was more wear and tear in the tissues surrounding the knee cap, a condition associated with overuse syndrome. The good news is that patellar-femoral syndrome ( knee cap irritation) can be successfully treated with Sports Physical Therapy. We refer to it as anterior knee pain. It is the most common Sports Physical Therapy condition found in distance runners.
Strengthening the muscle supporting the joint can fight off arthritic changes.
One probability brought up in the article was that exercising the muscles surrounding the joint had a healing effect on the joint. Although there is plenty of evidence to support the benefit of low-intensity aerobic activity for the arthritis symptoms (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16305269), a high-intensity repetitive weight-bearing activity, like training for a marathon, was thought to potentially cause damage. Surprisingly, the opposite seems to be the case. https://parksportspt.com/brooklyn-sports-rehabilitation/ The study supports our view that more exercise creates more benefits. Our clinics in Park Slope and Williamsburg specialize in Sports Rehabilitation and geared towards rehabilitation of the runners. From my personal experience as a competitive runner and working with hundreds of endurance athletes, I could see a measurable improvement in symptoms after individually designed and properly administered exercise program. Improving muscular control and re-balancing the muscle groups around the join accomplishes this goal. Sports Physical Therapist would implement an individualized program after properly identifying deficiencies in muscle performance during specifically chosen tasks. It is important to note that the aforementioned study did not measure additional variables such as training protocols, cross-training, and nutrition.