What We Think We Know About What Causes Running Injuries Might Be Wrong

October 25, 2021

It’s well known that runners suffer a lot of injuries — by many accounts, about half of all runners will be sidelined at some point each year. Less known is what exactly causes this huge rate of casualties in a non-contact sport. A new study suggests we may even know less than we think we do.

The standard answers point to basic risk factors such as high volume, high intensity, or running more than five or six days a week. But are these really the sources of our woes?

To find out, a team led by Jean-Francois Esculier of The Running Clinic (headquartered near Montreal, Canada) and a medical professor at the University of British Columbia, pored over 36 studies featuring a total of 23,000 runners, looking for trends. Podium Runner