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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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I have often been told that running is bad for you, as it will 'wear out the body'. This is a dangerous misconception. The human body is not a simple mechanical device like a car. With a car, the more you use it, the quicker it wears out. That's because a car is not alive; it does not heal itself. If you drive a car fast, the car does not adapt and become faster.
The human body is an adaptive system; if you work your body hard, the body becomes temporarily damaged, becomes heals back stronger and faster (supercompensation) [5[Supercompensation]]<ref name="a5"/><ref name="a1"/>. If you do nothing with your body, the body also adapts, becoming able to do less. Anyone who has trained has seen the way their body changes. Anyone who has stopped training has also seen the opposite adaptation.
It is not only the muscles and cardiovascular system that adapt to training. The bones, tendons, ligaments, joint cartilage, hormonal system all adapt as well. The human joints are passively lubricated - if you don't exercise, the surfaces tend to dry out. The cartilage of the joint has no direct blood supply - it obtains what it needs from the fluid in the joint. Without movement of the joint, the cartilage does not get the nutrients it needs.<ref name="a2"/>
A Stanford study [3] <ref name="a3"/> followed 538 runners for 20 years, starting when they were over 50. Over the 20 years, the runners were half as likely to die (15% compared with 34%). The runners suffered fewer cardiovascular fatalities, as you would expect, but they also suffered less from cancer, neurological disease, infections and other fatalities. The runners did get injured, but on average 16 years later than the non-runners. The gap between the runners and non-runners also got larger as time went on. Other studies have shown no link between running and Osteoarthritis [4, 6]<ref name="a4"/><ref name="a6"/>.
== A Cautionary Note ==
== References ==
