Scientfic study: Higher mileage runners less likely to have nagging Achilles pain one yr after injury than lower mileage runners

We all know achilles problems is a matter of high intensity, too much track training, forefoot running and the like.

Of course you have less problems in this direction as a high mileage slow jogging heel runner. However, your go-to injuries would be stress fractures then....

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

Maybe people with lingering achilles tendon problems can't run a lot of mileage. Ya think?

rojo wrote:

"Researchers wrote that their most surprising finding from this study was that a history of higher mileage before the injury actually lessened the likelihood of symptoms continuing after one year.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sms.13760https://runningmagazine.ca/health-nutrition/higher-mileage-could-lower-likelihood-of-nagging-achilles-pain/

We have documented numerous 800m athletes, male & female who have had Achilles injuries over the years and never returned to top form over the past ten or 12 years. No one can hobby jog to 800m excellence.

HRE > Rupp wrote:

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

This 100%

Also tendons repair themselves through usage, not rest.

I had achilles tendinitis that went nowhere during months of rest but disappeared quickly when I got frustrated, said "f*ck it" and went back to 100mpw

Did anyone actually skim through the study?

First off high vs low mileage was about before the injury. So it makes sense people who are already less injury prone can run more miles because they are already resistant to injury and recover quicker. Which why they have higher mileage. Not the other way around. Sounds like a classic lurking variable issue of a persons injury resistance/resiliency affecting both their mileage and recovery.

Secondly they separated into two groups. The “low” mileage group you all are referencing averaged UNDER. 10 miles a week (15 km). The “high” mileage group was BARELY over 15 miles a week (avg 25 km).

To me, this was not even a study of actual runners. I call BS on any meaningful results and conclusions people are coming to.

So... yeah, I think we call just ignore this and keep whatever preconceived opinions about mileage and injury we had. This is meaningless.

And people that run lower mileage tend to run more on the balls of the feet which strains the Achilles more than heel striking that higher mileage runners do.

I agree.

Also, no analysis was done about the velocity these runners were training at. The faster you run the more stress is placed on the AT. Typically lower mileage runners train faster.

Lydiard said that not one of his runners that did hill bounding ever had achilles problems.

I don't know that it has anything to do with form necessarily. Actual runners that run low mileage run a higher percentage of their miles at a fast pace. It's been known for 60 years that the more overall miles you can run the more total quality miles you can handle. This isn't complicated. People on these boards fiercely debate this for no reason. Your dogma has passed and been debunked over two decades ago. That's why westerners can't catch up. We have all these stupid mantras and things we do that's counterproductive such as running our last rep all out week in and week out or the worst offender of them all 'no pain no gain'. That's why I have to just shake my head when I see so and so top 5 american marathoner is only averaging 100MPW and says their body can't handle any more. Why is that? Because you run 6:00 pace or faster nearly every run and do all your workouts while the East Africans are doing 120-140 or even more and they run way slower outside of their workouts. Everyone knows Kenyans have horrible shuffling form when they run easy and that's because they run slow a lot. Every person on here keeps saying you can't let your form break down and it's obviously not a factor because they are mopping the floor with our athletes. If our country had the same percentage of the population training at a high level we would still be behind on depth because of the way we think about how training should feel.

HRE > Rupp wrote:

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

As someone who had Achilles surgery, I also wasn't impressed. My take was differerent though. Coulnd't it just be the difference between causation and correlation?

The people who ran high mileage before were obviously healthy enough to run a lot for a while without getting hard. So whatever structural/biomechanical problems they have aren't as severe as someone who gets an achilles issue only running 10 mpw.

this is stupid wrote:

Sounds like a classic lurking variable issue of a persons injury resistance/resiliency affecting both their mileage and recovery.

The “low” mileage group you all are referencing averaged UNDER. 10 miles a week (15 km). The “high” mileage group was BARELY over 15 miles a week (avg 25 km).

To me, this was not even a study of actual runners. I call BS on any meaningful results and conclusions people are coming to.

This is meaningless.

Dear Heavens.

SS Entershikari wrote:

HRE > Rupp wrote:

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

This 100%

Also tendons repair themselves through usage, not rest.

I had achilles tendinitis that went nowhere during months of rest but disappeared quickly when I got frustrated, said "f*ck it" and went back to 100mpw

Oh yeah? Just wait when you get over 40 to see how good all that mileage did to you....

i support any study that calls (an even less distance than) my hobby jogging 'high mileage'.

I feel i can now safely identify as an olympian.

Seb.

rojo wrote:

HRE > Rupp wrote:

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

As someone who had Achilles surgery, I also wasn't impressed. My take was differerent though. Coulnd't it just be the difference between causation and correlation?

The people who ran high mileage before were obviously healthy enough to run a lot for a while without getting hard. So whatever structural/biomechanical problems they have aren't as severe as someone who gets an achilles issue only running 10 mpw.

Here's how an actual study on the topic should look if it's going to prove causation:

1) Enroll a bunch of people in the study and randomly assign them to a high mileage or low mileage group

2) Have them follow their assigned training regimen for a standardized amount of time

3) Injure the achilles of each study participant, possibly through a surgical procedure for best standardization

4) Have all the runners follow standard of care for treatment of the injury

5) complete statistical analysis to see if one group recovered faster/more completely than the other

Of course it would be hard to get people to willingly enroll in this, so maybe they could use prisoners or detained illegals or something.

this is stupid wrote:

Secondly they separated into two groups. The “low” mileage group you all are referencing averaged UNDER. 10 miles a week (15 km). The “high” mileage group was BARELY over 15 miles a week (avg 25 km).

To me, this was not even a study of actual runners. I call BS on any meaningful results and conclusions people are coming to.

One group was running 2x/week. The other 3x. Yeah we definitely aren't talking about people who are remotely serious. The take away might be more that frequent running is better.

Every running study has the same problem. In order to get a large enough sample to be statistically significant, the study invariably is a super majority of very casual runners. These are people for whom running is . . . what is the word I am looking for . . . avocation? Pastime? Leisure pursuit? And these people are not running very fast. It is more of a . . . can't think of the word. Saunter? Trot? Plodding? Oh well. Seems like there should be a phrase to describe these people.

Anyway, these studies make findings that are always flawed because there is never a statistically representative sampling of quality runners who put a lot of effort into their training and have some talent at the sport. Nothing can be learned from comparing someone with a 30 min 5k PR with someone who runs 15-16 min 5k. The muscular and connective tissue development in the faster runner is totally different from the leisure trotter or whatever they are called. The training demands are totally different.

Leisure trotter! lol

SS Entershikari wrote:

HRE > Rupp wrote:

Why is it surprising? Running a higher mileage makes your body stronger and more resilient.

Most runners get injured because they don't run enough mileage.

This 100%

Also tendons repair themselves through usage, not rest.

This 100% too.