Mythbusting
Straight answers to the running injury questions runners actually ask — including the ones where the honest answer is that we don’t really know.
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Should you be stretching?
Do what you enjoy. The evidence that stretching prevents running injuries is weak — but so is the evidence against it. The more useful question is what else you’d do with those twenty minutes.
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Does pain mean you’ve damaged something?
Almost certainly not. Pain is very rarely a measure of damage — it’s a signal that an area has become sensitive. Here’s what to do instead of searching at 2am.
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Will running wreck your knees?
No. When the studies were pooled, recreational runners had less hip and knee arthritis than people who don’t run at all — 3.5% against 10.2%.
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Are your running shoes causing your injury?
Almost certainly not. It’s the first thing runners blame and very rarely the culprit — here’s what the evidence shows, and what to look at instead.
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Should you ice a running injury?
Probably not — and the bag of frozen peas may be slowing you down. What the evidence says about ice, inflammation and what to do instead.