Contrary to popular belief and even my own clinical assumptions for many years, weight training and regular exercise actually reduce your odds of having pain in the joints in a dose dependant way. For years, I thought that runners would obviously have more osteoarthritis and knee pain then non-runners. NOT TRUE!! When I was 40-44 years old, I tried to run some long distance and injured my right knee. It was the marathon attempt that did me in. One of my training days was an 18 mile run and at mile 16-17, I had sudden right knee pain that stopped me and I had to hobble home. I never had it assessed, but even today it has some pain and weakness. I thought this was due to arthritis developing in the joint. This may be somewhat true, but it does not mean that I cannot fully exercise on the knee. So I started doing occasional running/jogging and the pain is no different. My activity is not moving the knee joint towards surgery and replacement, which was my original assumption. I’ve been retrained the last 5 years now by new research that speaks to this question, and I’ve changed my tune in patient interactions about exercise in general and the old wear and tear idea. The new thought is that your immune system has an amazing capacity to fix the body, and when you exercise and weight train, this system is not hampered, but tuned up! Does this mean you should go train for a marathon after your documented knee injury? NO. See your primary care to review what is actually happening and then make a plan to move forward. Does this mean that you should worry about osteoarthritis developing in your knees when you exercise in the future? NO. Develop an exercise plan that will be protective with your health care providers to decrease the odds of pain later in life. This is good news!

Article to read: https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/art.42732 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667877/