Explainer | The secret to pain-free knees this running season: avoid high-impact sports, work on quad strength and always warm up thoroughly, doctors say
- The knee joint is complex and prone to injury, but running keeps it healthy and lowers the risk of osteoarthritis; marathon training can even repair some damage
- Doctors say losing excess weight, doing quadriceps-strengthening exercises and warming up well before every run will help keep your knees pain-free
As the running season gets going again in subtropical Asia after a pandemic-induced hiatus – the Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon and Moontrekker events are back in October, though with a smaller field for the first, and in a virtual format for the second – it’s time to resolve a common misconception: that pounding the roads and trails is bad for the knees.
Of the 360 joints in the human body, the knee is the largest and the most complex. Our knees allow for efficient walking and enable us to lift and lower our body. They help keep us upright while bearing much of our body weight.
The joint’s components include bones, muscles, cartilage, ligaments and tendons. The four major bones involved are the thigh bone (femur), the shin bones (tibia and fibula) and kneecap (patella).
The kneecap is lined by the body’s thickest layer of cartilage, and is also our biggest “sesamoid” bone, meaning it is not attached to another bone by a true joint.
It is also unusual in that we are not born with kneecaps. From birth, it takes about three years for them to fully develop. Like our fingerprints, everyone’s kneecaps are unique.
