What diseases can jogging trigger? | Losing weight by jogging

What diseases can jogging trigger?

The Iliotibial Band Syndrome, ITBS for short, is one of the typical jogging diseases. It is often colloquially referred to as the runner’s knee. The iliotibial ligament, known as the tractus iliotibialis, consists, among other things, of the tendons of two muscles.

It runs from the lower pelvis to just below the knee joint. Overloading due to excessive training units, incorrect loading or lack of stretching exercises results in constant friction of the tractus iliotibialis against the condyle lateralis femoris, a part of the thigh bone just above the knee joint. This causes an irritation.

This causes stabbing pain on the outside of the knee joint. At first the pain only occurs when jogging, later also when walking. Due to the pain, they significantly restrict mobility.

Gentle treatment, possibly cooling and an analgesic, anti-inflammatory therapy are the means of choice. Regular stretching and strengthening exercises serve as prevention. Pain in the area of the Achilles tendon is also a relatively common symptom for runners.

The Achilles tendon is used to attach the calf muscle in the area of the heel bone. When the tendon becomes inflamed due to overloading (Achillodynia), there is typically stabbing pain in the area where the tendon is attached, i.e. in the area of the calcaneus. At the beginning, the pain is usually present as an initial pain, but disappears after a few minutes of walking.

If the inflammation does not heal, the pain can, however, spread and even persist when simply walking. A hardening of the lower calf muscles can also accompany the pain. There are many possible causes: incorrect footwear, insufficiently developed calf muscles, lack of stretching exercises.

If there is an inflammation of the Achilles tendon, jogging should be stopped. Regular cooling and a medicinal pain therapy are used. As a preventive measure, you should make sure that you wear the right shoes when jogging.

In addition, regular strengthening and stretching exercises for the calf muscles should be carried out. The question of whether years of jogging promotes the development of arthrosis in the knee joint is still controversial. So far there is no reliable evidence that leisure jogging leads to knee arthrosis (gonarthrosis).

However, it seems certain that long-distance runners (competitive athletes) have a significantly increased risk of knee arthrosis. To date, there is not enough research to be able to rule out with certainty that regular jogging over a period of years promotes degenerative changes in the knee joints. According to current studies, however, moderate jogging does not appear to be an essential risk factor for the development of knee arthrosis.

What are the alternatives to losing weight?

It has already been pointed out here several times that jogging alone is usually not a sufficient means of losing weight. Rather, the combination of regular physical activity and a change of diet is the best solution. Diet usually plays a more decisive role in weight loss than exercise.

Nevertheless, sport is an important factor. In addition to jogging, there are many other possibilities for endurance sports. Sports such as cycling, Nordic walking, swimming or regular workouts on bicycle ergometers, treadmills or cross trainers are also sensible alternatives to jogging.