A study published in PLOS One in May 2026 has added nuance to the long-running debate about how age shapes running injuries, reporting clear differences in where runners get hurt, how often injuries limit their participation, and how they structure their training across the age spectrum. The cross-sectional research, led by Berns and colleagues, compared younger runners with master athletes and challenges the assumption that injury risk can be understood without reference to age.
The headline finding is that injury location and the degree to which an injury limits participation vary meaningfully between the two groups, rather than following a single universal pattern. That distinction matters for clinicians and coaches, who have often applied broadly similar load-management advice regardless of a runner's age. The data suggest that the typical injury profile of a 25-year-old and a 55-year-old are not interchangeable, and that prevention strategies may need to be tailored accordingly.
Training habits also diverged. The study points to differences in weekly volume, session structure and recovery behaviour across age groups, factors that interact with the body's changing capacity to absorb and adapt to load over time. Master runners, in particular, may benefit from closer attention to recovery and to the kinds of strength and conditioning work that research has repeatedly linked to improved running economy and reduced injury risk.
The findings sit alongside a wave of recent work reshaping injury science. A large Garmin-RUNSAFE cohort study tracking thousands of runners across dozens of countries recently found that the risk of overuse injury rises sharply when a single run substantially exceeds a runner's longest effort of the previous month, casting doubt on tidy rules of thumb such as the ten per cent guideline. Taken together, these studies point towards a more individualised understanding of load, in which age, history and recent training all feed into risk.
As with all cross-sectional research, the new study describes associations rather than proving cause and effect, and its authors are careful not to overstate the practical implications. Even so, the message for everyday runners is a constructive one: training that is sensitive to age, attentive to sudden spikes in distance and supported by consistent strength work is more likely to keep them healthy than any one-size-fits-all formula.