The Dogma of Running Injuries: Perceptions of Adolescent and Adult Runners

Context Adults perceive certain factors to increase or decrease the risk of sustaining running-related injuries, but many of their perceptions are not supported by research. Little is known about the perceptions that adolescent runners hold. Investigating perceptions for adolescent runners is needed to assist in the development of future injury educational materials, as these resources may need to be tailored differently for adolescents and adults. Objective To identify factors that adolescent runners perceive as risk or protective factors for running-related injuries and to compare these perceptions with those of adult runners. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Online survey. Patients or Other Participants We surveyed 302 adolescent (164 females, 138 males; age = 16.0 ± 1.4 years [range, 12–19 years]) and 357 adult runners (197 women, 160 men; age = 40.7 ± 11.8 years [range, 20–77 years]). Main Outcome Measure(s) Participants completed a survey with questions about whether factors related to training habits, footwear, biomechanics, strength, stretching, or nutrition influence the risk of sustaining a running-related injury. If ≥75% of adolescents indicated that a factor increases or decreases the risk of sustaining an injury, we considered that factor to be a perceived risk or protective factor, respectively. We also performed Fisher’s exact test to compare the proportion of adolescent and adult runners who responded with “increase,” “decrease,” “neither increase or decrease,” or “I don’t know” to each question. Results Adolescent runners perceived training habits, footwear, biomechanics, strength, stretching, and nutrition to increase or decrease the risk of sustaining a running-related injury. A larger proportion of adolescents than adults perceived that more footwear cushioning and stretching decrease injury risk, but a smaller proportion perceived that overtraining increases injury risk and strength decreases injury risk. Conclusions Differences in perceptions exist between adolescent and adult runners, and future educational materials and research questions may need to be tailored for different running populations.