Does Running Damage The Knees? YES, But ONLY if You Heel Strike!

The only proven way running damages the knees is if you land with a heel strike, but not with a forefoot strike, shown below.  In fact, forefoot running is the only running style that completely safeguards the knees long-term, and has also been pegged as a literal cure for runners knee (chronically painful knees).

How to Fix Lower Back Pain From Running: Fix Your Foot Strike!
Forefoot striking when running (above left) takes the lead in being the most protective foot strike for not just your knees, but for your entire body vs heel striking (above left). This is because landing forefoot-first makes your knee-joint safely and softly bend at landing, which was found to be the least stressful on the knee vs heel striking which causes the knee to stiffly lock-out in an unstable position at landing, leading to significantly more opposing forces most responsible for wearing down the knee-joint over-time!

Heel Strike Running is the Worst for Your Knees
In the research on impact mechanics, the connection between heel strike running and knee injury is there’s significantly more loading exerted on the knee because the knee-joint is completely unbent and stiff at heel strike, which was found to result in poor impact absorption across the entire leg. [1]
Worse still, heel striking when running also increases deceleration (braking) and compression forces on the knee-joint [1], thereby contributing to knee pain.

What’s more worse, to remedy this knee pain, most heel strike runners invest in hick cushioned running shoes with a heel counter, but sadly, heel counters only worsens knee pain by encouraging the runner to strike higher and harder on their heels!

  • Heel counters increase the rate of absorption at heel strike, but do not lower deceleration, or compressive forces [1], suggesting that heel counters do not stop cumulative stresses on the knee during heel strike running, and therefore should be avoided.


This is why for heel strike runners the efforts to reduce impact needs to go beyond thicker shoe cushioning, rather the best, most sustainable solution for optimal knee health is forefoot running (click here to see what a proper forefoot strike looks like) because its been proven over and over to do the most good at stopping the flow of high impacts to the knee as well as elsewhere along the body.

More on Why Forefoot Running is Safest for Your Knees

As mentioned briefly above, forefoot striking automatically causes the knee to slighly bend at landing, which also makes the knee more flex, and not stiff like in heel strike running. A flexed, and therefore, bent knee at landing allows the knee to be more compliant knee which was found to be an effective shock reducing mechanism because not only does a compliant knee make the knee better at absorbing impact, a bent knee at landing ensure a foot position that is closer to the center mass (your hips). This ensure a shorter stride, a wider stance and a higher cadence, all of which are the only way to over-come high impact condition, not with shoe cushioning!

Is it Better to Run on Your Forefoot? YES!
Forefoot striking has a positive cascading effect on your entire leg swing mechanics in that the action of landing forefoot-first makes the knee bend which positions your foot closer to your center mass at landing, which in turn, closes the distance between your upper body and your initial foot strike position, thereby preventing an over-stride and engaging a shorter stride. At the same time, cadence naturally increases which enables the foot to spend less time on the ground and more time in the air where there’s less time for unwanted foot motions to occur.

Landing this way also takes less energy than reaching out with your foot! In fact, click here to find out why forefoot running is more economical than heel strike running.

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References:

[1]. Jorgenson, U. (1990). Body load in heel strike running: the effect of a firm heel counter. The American Journal of Sports Medicine 18, 177-181.

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