Running – your joints’ worst enemy or best friend?

Although lots of you get pleasure out of running, this activity may be also a source of severe stress affecting your joints. Train wisely and consciously and enjoy being fit without any pain.  Joints love physical activity but only when you take proper care of them. Choose special footwear that meets your needs. Make sure whether it is appropriate for the surface you are going to train on.

If you are going to run on sealed or solid surface, e.g. pavement or asphalt, you should wear shoes with high arch and soft sole. If you are going to work out on soft surfaces e.g. in forest, make sure your shoes are well-stabilized. Always buy running shoes in the afternoon, after the whole day at work and make sure they are 4-5 mm larger than regular footwear. It is good to know what kind of foot have you got: supinating (you rub your shoes on the internal side), pronated (you rub your shoes on the external side) or neutral. You can have it checked in professional sports shops.

A perfectly-matched pair of shoes will straightaway adapt perfectly to the shape of the foot. Shoes should be changed every 800-1000 km even when they are not worn out. It is worth controlling your joints’ condition as well as moistening and nourishing them. As a point of interest, your joints need time to regenerate, so as your shoes – they also have to ‘rest’ to amortize (shoe foam deformation).