Learning How to Indulge My Love of Running Despite Nagging Joint Problems

Being a guy who loves to exercise and push my body to its limits, while at the same time having a bad hip, I am all too familiar with nagging aches and pains. I have learned to accept a certain amount of pain and discomfort in my daily life, and I have become well-versed in highlighting and avoiding those activities that tend to overtax my arthritic hip. There is one activity that, considering the condition of my hip, would probably be best for me to avoid: running. Running, by nature of all of the pounding involved and the stress that's placed on both the hips and knees, is probably not the type of exercise for me to engage in. But the problem is, I love running! From my experience, there is no other exercise around that gives me that "runner's high" as well as, well, running.

The funny thing is, I never really had that great of an affinity towards the act of running when I was younger. All through grade school and high school, running was never one of the activities that I looked forward to. I was a cyclist and a weight lifter; a part-time swimmer and a sometimes hiker. Running was viewed more as a form of punishment than it was pleasure. Those track and field athletes in high school were crazy morons for doing all of that running; the neighborhood jogger was insane for running down the street when he could have just as easily walked. If somebody were chasing you or if you were fleeing some sort of danger, then yeah, running would definitely have its place. But over the years, as I moved into my early 20's and beyond, I slowly started to experiment with running. It was at my local health club where I would get up on the track and just do a few laps to warm up before weight lifting. Then, after I became too bored toiling away on the lifecycle or elliptical machine, I would venture up onto the track and do a mile, even a few miles on a good day. I would normally find a fellow gym-goer up on the track who was at about my fitness level; we would run together, or we would challenge each other. There were many times that I had wonderful conversations while running, only to be amazed that while chatting away with my running partner, a distance of three or four miles had been covered.

And the funny thing is, my hip has always tolerated running reasonably well. There are some days when my hip feels too achy and too stiff to run or do much of anything else, and on those days I give my hip a much-needed rest. Logically speaking, with all of the pounding and impact of my own body weight on my hip being magnified with each step, running should cause a great deal of discomfort to me, but it doesn't. It's strange, but I feel like I've found a happy medium in terms of being able to run without overtaxing my faulty hip joint. The only real concession I have made in deference to my hip is to alter my stride when running. Being that I am very protective of my hip - aside from the running thing - I have employed a little "preventative medicine" in terms of how I run.

Most people, when they are running, will spring off of one leg and their weight will come crashing down onto their other leg; it's common to have both feet off the ground for milliseconds during the course of a single stride. What I do to alleviate much of that pounding is to take longer steps, which lowers my center of gravity and greatly increases my stride length. This allows me to keep one leg on the ground at all times; at no point in time do both of my feet leave the ground simultaneously. As soon as one foot is rising, the other foot is touching down. It looks kind of funny to more traditional runners, but it allows me to run at a relatively fast pace without all of the jarring. I actually learned how to implement this style of running from a cousin of mine who has bad knees. It not only benefits the hips, but it benefits the ankles and knees as well. So, taking into account the condition of my hip joint, I'm sure that I would suffer much more pain and discomfort from running if I were to implement a normal style of running, but I have taken precautionary steps which I believe will allow me to continue running with minimal pain.

The way I see it, if you enjoy running and you have a problem with one of your joints, it might be premature of you to conclude that your running day's might be over. By implementing changes in your running technique and stride, you might be able to continue your running life while at the same time extending the life of your painful, irritated joints.