Running with a stroller seems to reduce the risk of injuries
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- Allison Altman Singles at Pennsylvania State University led a study of 196 parents who ran with prams and 53 who ran without, finding a 37 per cent drop in injury risk among pram users.
- Non-pram runners reported injuries at a 30 per cent rate, versus 19 per cent for pram runners, with reduced incidence of ankle pain, calf muscle injuries, plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis.
- Stroller running produces a 16 per cent lower vertical impact force per step, likely because runners lean on the pram — a "walker effect" — and adopt shorter, quicker strides.
- Cara Wall-Scheffler at Seattle Pacific University called the paper a "great start" but noted the shorter-stride gait raises metabolic cost, and called for future work on different pushing styles such as one- or two-handed form.
- The sample skewed heavily female, particularly in the pram group, a limitation Wall-Scheffler flagged because oestrogen and progesterone may affect connective-tissue pliability and thus injury risk.
- The study was published in PLoS One (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0354371), and was sparked by Altman Singles' own experience running with a pram after the births of her two children.
Why it matters: For the thousands of parents who squeeze runs in while pushing young children, the finding reframes pram running from a logistical compromise into a potentially joint-protective activity — the 16 per cent drop in per-step impact force appears to translate into meaningfully fewer ankle, calf, plantar and Achilles injuries. The caveat: with very few men in the sample, it's unclear whether the protective effect holds for fathers, and researchers flagged hormonal influences on connective tissue that future studies must address.
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