Which is better for your joints: walking or running? Dr Pankaj Walecha explains it may depend on what you do before that
The Joint-Health Question Behind India's Running Boom
Bharatmorningnews.com – Across India's metro cities, the landscape of weekend exercise has shifted dramatically. Running clubs have multiplied, 5K and 10K events fill the calendar, and tens of thousands of participants now line up for marathons held in major urban centres. What was once the domain of elite athletes has become a mainstream recreational pursuit. Yet this rapid expansion has raised a practical question for orthopaedic specialists: how do the joints of a newly motivated runner cope with the mechanical stresses of repeated impact?
For older adults especially, the choice between walking and running as a cardiovascular exercise has become a source of genuine confusion. Both activities carry legitimate health benefits, but the framing of the debate often misses the point entirely. Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Pankaj Walecha argues that asking "which activity is easier on the knees?" is the wrong question to begin with.
The Real Variable: Conditioning, Not Activity Type
What actually determines joint safety, in Walecha's view, is whether the surrounding musculature, tendons, and connective tissue have been progressively conditioned to absorb the forces a given movement generates. Equally important is the rate at which that load escalates. A joint that has spent years adapting to walking-level forces will respond very differently to the same forces arriving at running-level intensity.
"What matters is whether the joints, muscles and tendons are conditioned to handle the load being placed on them, and whether that load is being increased at a pace the body can adapt to."
Why Running Demands More Than Walking
Biomechanically, each running stride includes a brief flight phase in which both feet leave the ground, followed by a rapid re-landing that transfers body weight through the lower limbs at a higher velocity than any walking gait produces. The peak forces on the knee, ankle, and hip joints are therefore substantially greater per step. Walecha is clear that this does not make running inherently destructive to healthy joints; it simply means the activity requires a period of preparatory conditioning before the body can tolerate it safely.
"A person who has been largely inactive cannot assume that being able to complete a five-kilometre walk means the knees, calves, Achilles tendon, and hips are immediately ready for five kilometres of running."
A particularly insidious aspect of this mismatch, he notes, is that the cardiovascular system adapts far more quickly than the supporting skeletal and soft-tissue structures. A novice runner may feel breathless only briefly, interpret that rapid improvement as whole-body readiness, and push distance or frequency beyond what tendons and bone can yet withstand.
"The lungs may cope before the supporting tissues do. This is one reason new runners can feel perfectly capable during a workout and develop knee, shin or tendon pain afterwards."
Walking as a Foundational Layer
Given the above, Walecha positions regular walking as the most prudent entry point for anyone returning to exercise after a period of inactivity, carrying excess body weight, or simply building a base from scratch. Walking is easier to repeat consistently, carries lower per-step impact, and can be progressed in duration, pace, and incline without immediately exposing the lower limbs to running-level forces.
"Brisk walking, longer walks, and incline walking can progressively challenge the cardiovascular system while also giving the lower limbs time to adapt."
However, treating walking as a complete substitute for resistance training is a mistake. If the eventual goal includes running, the preparatory phase must incorporate targeted strength work for the muscles that stabilise and absorb force at the knee, ankle, and hip.
"If someone eventually wants to run, the preparation should include the muscles that control the knee, ankle and hip. The quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calf muscles all contribute to absorbing and controlling forces during movement."
"Basic strength work such as squats, step-ups, calf raises, hip strengthening and controlled single-leg exercises can therefore be more valuable than simply adding more kilometres."
Osteoarthritis and Prior Knee Pain: Activity, Not Avoidance
For individuals carrying a diagnosis of osteoarthritis or a history of recurrent knee pain, the reflex to eliminate all load-bearing activity is rarely the optimal strategy. Walecha emphasises that a joint diagnosis does not automatically mandate complete protection from movement. In many clinical scenarios, the more effective path is identifying the activity level the joint can currently tolerate and building incrementally from that threshold.
"Walking may be more comfortable during a painful period, while running may need to be modified or temporarily avoided depending on symptoms and function."
The Run-Walk Method and the Pacing Trap
A practical tool for bridging the gap between walking fitness and running tolerance is the run-walk interval method. Rather than attempting continuous running from the outset, a person alternates short bouts of running with brisk walking breaks. Over successive sessions, the running intervals lengthen while the walking intervals shorten, allowing tendons and bone to adapt in step with cardiovascular gains. This approach also removes the psychological pressure to view walking breaks as personal failure.
"For many recreational runners, they are simply a sensible way of managing training load."
The same pacing logic applies to individuals using exercise as a component of weight management. Walking may be the best initial modality for someone carrying excess mass, because it permits consistent, low-impact repetition while the musculoskeletal system builds the capacity to handle progressively greater demands.
The Central Risk: Doing Too Much, Too Soon
Walecha identifies the most common injury pathway among new runners not as running itself but as an aggressive early progression. A typical pattern: sign up for a 10K, begin running four or five days per week, and rapidly extend distance because the first few sessions produce a noticeable cardiovascular improvement. That early fitness gain creates a false signal that the entire body is ready for the same rate of progression, when in fact tendons, bone, and cartilage are still adapting on a slower biological timetable.
"For new runners, the biggest problem is often not running itself but doing too much too soon."
"The cardiovascular system can improve quickly, creating a false sense that the entire body is ready for the same progression. Tendons, bones and other tissues adapt more gradually."
The practical implication for anyone considering adding running to their routine is straightforward: the question is not whether running is "bad for the knees." The question is whether the individual's current conditioning level, training history, and rate of progression align with the mechanical demands the activity will impose. Answered honestly, that question points most people toward a phased approach—walking first, strength work alongside, and running introduced gradually—rather than toward an either-or choice between two activities.
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