Running Injuries

Abstract

This retrospective study reports on 4,173 running injuries seen on referral over a 4-year period at a sports medicine clinic. Runners were grouped as recreational, marathon, or middle distance runners on the basis of their training, and data was examined for groupwise differences in age, gender, anatomical site of injury, diagnosis, and time of year the injury presented. Additionally, the results were compared to those of a 1981 study of 1,819 injuries from the same population in order to determine changes in injury patterns over time. The knee was the most common site of injury, with patellofemoral pain syndrome the most common overall diagnosis, although there were significant differences between the training groups for both injury site and diagnosis. The pattern of injuries has changed over the interval between the two studies, with a higher proportion of knee injuries and a relatively lower frequency of lower leg and foot injuries, and much of this change is attributed to improvements in footwear technology.