Comment by richeyryan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by richeyryan | Hacker News Reader

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This is technically true if you go out and start running a lot from zero if you are overweight or ignore your body and the warnings it gives in the run-up to injury. If you build up running gradually and treat it as a skill that you learn and improve on your technique and always listen to the feedback your body is giving you, then running is a great way to improve the health of the joints, muscles and bones in your legs and feet.

Most children happily run around all day and rarely develop any issues. Adults have an unfortunate habit of becoming quite sedentary, losing any conditioning they had and then going out and running distances their body isn't prepared for. Then people will blame their shoes or even the activity itself when the most significant factor is doing too much too soon.

This interview with Daniel Lieberman[1], an evolutionary biologist out of Harvard, is a good read about the misconceptions associated with human activity and what studies of our historical behaviour can tell us about what is and isn't important in staying active.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/daniel-lieber...

> Most children happily run around all day and rarely develop any issues

I am an adult and I definitely have kept issues from things that I did as a child.

Now, seriously, isn't the body weight to joint surface ratio completely different for children and adults?

Can anyone point to more details about the kinds of injury one sustains when going to "a lot from zero"?

What can be done to fix such injuries?

As a guy who has run basic training for recruits in the military, I would say the most common is shin splints (by far), followed by tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, and in exceptionally rare cases, compartment syndrome (although I have seen it, and this requires surgery to correct).

Prevention is key for these-- particularly by familiarizing your body with the loads incrementally. While some may have the aerobic fitness to complete a 5k (even if they're new to running-- a cyclist or swimmer, perhaps) the musculo-skeletal adaptations involved with consistency haven't occurred yet, and injury is a lot more likely. Even elite runners, when they're "getting back into it" start with alternating run-walks to avoid the "too much, too fast" loading.

Most of these can be addressed by seeing a physiotherapist, and normally involve cutting mileage or pace significantly and/or strengthening weak supporting muscles.

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