23/08/2026
Running shouldnât be the test to see if youâre ready to run
Yet this is how a lot of return-to-running decisions are made:
âMy knee feels pretty goodâŚâ
âIâll try a little 5k.â
đ Run
đŹ Knee flares
đ Rest
đ Pain settles
đ âIâll test it againâŚâ
And repeat
The problem might not be running itself
It might be that youâre asking a leg to tolerate something it hasnât been prepared for yet
Before I return someone to running, I want to know:
Is the knee settled?
Have we actually rebuilt the strength of the quads, hamstrings and calves?
Can the leg absorb and produce force through jumping, hopping and landing?
And only then do we start progressively rebuilding running volume
Because pain-free doesnât automatically mean run-ready
And two legs being âequalâ doesnât mean much if theyâre both weak
We test. We donât guess.
Then running becomes part of the progression, rather than the thing we keep using to find out whether your knee is ready
If youâre stuck in the cycle of run â flare-up â rest â repeat, message me RUN and Iâll send you my Return to Run Guide