Running shoes for bad knees are designed to prevent sensitive knee joints from sustaining long-term damage from running.
Running is hard on all the joints of the leg and these running shoes can help offset the impact of running on the knee, ankle and hip joints.
While these shoes are typically worn by older persons, running shoes for bad knees can also help prevent a younger person from developing knee problems.
9 Benefits Of Running Shoes For Bad Knees
Our health and wellness experts have brought together the following list of benefits produced by running shoes for bad knees.
1: Running shoes for bad knees will help you walk more effectively.
There is compelling evidence that seniors who run several times a week retain the ability to walk as briskly and effectively as people in their 20s (1). This is important because walking may have just as many positive health benefits for seniors as running (2). So a good pair of running shoes intended to alleviate knee pain gives you a couple of equally great options. You can use them to run a few times a week and thereby enhance your walking abilities. Or you can use them to go for increasingly vigorous walks as you prepare your body for running. Or you can use them to run one day, walk the next, run the next and so on.
2: Running shoes for bad knees will help prevent knee pain from becoming isolation.
In far too many cases, physical setbacks wind up being the catalyst for older individuals to begin isolating themselves. Rather than pursuing rehabilitation, they simply give up or give in to fears that more injuries await. As a result they withdraw from physical activity altogether (3). But while getting older is no picnic, isolation is not the answer (4)(5). It’s important to stay in the game and work to overcome things like knee pain, rather than letting it become the start of a greater decline. The right running shoes can help alleviate your knee pain and keep you in the habit of pursuing robust health.
3: Running shoes for bad knees can help treat patellar tendonitis.
Patellar tendonitis (6) is sometimes called ‘jumper’s knee’ because it affects people who jump a lot on hard surfaces, such as basketball players. But it can be caused by things other than jumping up and down. For instance, wearing the wrong shoes can cause patellar tendonitis. If the shoes you’ve been running or walking in angle down sharply from heel to toe, this can put enormous strain on the patellar tendon. The result is tendonitis and the pain that comes with it. Getting the right shoes with a gentler slope from heel to toe and plenty of cushioning can help reduce the pain associated with this condition.
4: Running shoes for bad knees help you maintain a healthy weight.
The obesity epidemic has touched every part of the population, including people over 50. Being overweight is a clear and present danger for older people. It can lead to type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and a greatly increased risk of heart disease (7). One of the best ways to maintain a healthy body weight and a healthy BMI (8) is to run on a regular basis. Some people are hesitant to run because they have experienced knee pain in the past. But the cost of not running can wind up being far greater than the cost of a good pair of running shoes that will help alleviate knee pain.
5: Running shoes for bad knees help you rebuild strength after knee surgery.
People who have had ACL surgery (9) or seniors who have undergone knee replacement surgery need a way to rebuild strength in their knee afterward. Running is one of the best ways to do that. But it has to be approached in a smart, patient manner. You may need to start by running on an antigravity treadmill (10). But regardless of whether you start running again on one of these state of the art devices or you simply work your way back to running in a more traditional way (11) your running shoes for knee pain can help make it happen. And because of that, you’ll be able to rebuild strength in your knee.
6: Running shoes for bad knees help you reduce the risk of heart disease.
Anything that helps you become more physically active is going to help reduce the risk of developing heart disease (12). Remember, the heart is a muscle. As such, it is capable of responding to exercise, just as your biceps do. Research has found that people who run often actually have larger, more efficient hearts than those who don’t (13). This larger, stronger heart pumps more blood with greater ease and can also help lower blood pressure. Running also tends to help reduce the amount of ‘bad’ cholesterol in a person’s blood.
7: Running shoes for bad knees can help prevent falls.
Most of the benefits we list here stem from the act of running. And not from the shoes themselves. The shoes enable you to run, which produces the various benefits. This one is no different. That said, leg weakness is a major contributing factor to older people falling and hurting themselves (14). Once you’re able to start running, you will strengthen the leg muscles from hip to heel. This increased leg strength will go a long way toward improving your overall stability and preventing falls as you age.
8: Running shoes for bad knees can help improve bone density.
When older folks do fall, the reason they wind up breaking bones is because those bones are weak. As such, a combination of strong leg muscles and strong bones will provide a robust defense against falling and against broken bones should a fall occur. Running, even light running a few times a week, is a great way to not only build stronger leg muscles, but to build stronger leg bones (15) as well. Running shoes that reduce knee pain will allow you to get out there and strengthen your legs inside and out.
9: Running shoes for bad knees may play an indirect role in helping to stave off dementia.
That’s quite a claim we know. But hear us out. As people age, they tend to become increasingly sedentary. And sedentary behavior has been linked to a loss of control over blood sugars. This loss of glycemic control, as it’s called, is now believed to be a major contributing factor in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (16)(17). So, while running shoes by themselves won’t do anything to stave off dementia, actually putting them on and running will.
Conclusion
From preventing knee pain to helping to treat patellar tendonitis and enabling you to maintain a healthy weight (which is good for all your leg joints), running shoes for bad knees are an affordable way to ensure minor knee pain today does not become chronic knee pain tomorrow.