THE WHY FACTOR
How every step you take will change your life for the better this year
01 TO BUST THAT KNEES MYTH
IF WE HAD A POUND FOR EVERY TIME WE’VE HEARD, ‘Pounding the pavements? You’ll ruin your knees!’ we’d all be, well, perhaps not millionaires, but definitely set for a new pair of Alphaf lys. And the doubters would be wrong.
Osteoarthritis is no joke – when cartilage around the bones deteriorates, the result is pain, stiffness and even disability. It’s incredibly common, and there’s no known cure. But running will not increase your risk.
In a study from the University of California, published last year, researchers surveyed 3,804 runners who had run in the Chicago Marathon in 2019 or 2021 and asked them for a potted running history: how many years, average pace, any family history of arthritis. On average, their subjects were around 44 years old and ran 27.9 miles a week at just under nine-minute mile pace. And from the elites down to the first-timers, the researchers found no association between increased risk of knee (or hip) arthritis and the number of years someone had been running. Nor with the numbers of marathons they’d run, their weekly mileage, nor their pace.
Overall, only 7.3% of those studied said they’d ever received a diagnosis of knee or hip arthritis. For reference, approximately one in 10 adults have osteoarthritis in the UK.
Unfortunately, doctors don’t always seem to read the latest studies – in this one, the researchers asked all runners if their own doctors had ever suggested they cut back on mileage or stop running. Nearly a quarter of them said yes.
02 TO HELP YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY
DISCARDED RUBBISH DOESN’T JUST LOOK BAD, it can harm wildlife, attract vermin and has even been shown to contribute to crime in an area. More than 2m pieces of litter are dropped on UK streets every single day, and while we’re sure RW readers are the most responsible of non-littering citizens, perhaps it’s time we got a bit more proactive.
So why not make 2024 the year you discover ‘plogging’. The word comes from Swedish, a mix of ‘plocka upp’, meaning ‘pick up’, and ‘jogga’, which you can probably work out. The result is jogging while picking up litter. You can find out about local events via the Plogga website or Facebook page.
03 TO LIVE LONGER (AND BETTER)
AS REASONS TO LACE UP YOUR TRAINERS GO, extending your lifespan is a strong one. Scientists looking into what happens when we age study telomeres – the structures at the end of chromosomes that decrease (in number and length) as we get older. Many studies have shown that exercise seems to slow this decline – and now new research puts a figure on it.
Scientists at Brigham Young University in Utah looked at over 4,400 people, co
