By Marlene Cimons Special to The Washington Post When former Olympian Joan Benoit Samuelson ran the 2022 London Marathon, she knew she was taking a risk. It would be her first 26.2-mile race since undergoing a partial right knee replacement in 2020, and many orthopedists warn that high-impact sports after knee replacement can hasten the breakdown of a new knee.
She needn’t have worried. “The knee felt good, and it was definitely worth it,” says Samuelson, 65, who won the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984 and has set several world and U.S.
records during her long running career. “I wasn’t able to run at all before, the pain was excruciating. My surgeons knew that I would be running on the knee with the intention of running marathons.
” Knee replacement, the most commonly performed joint replacement surgery, involves replacing damaged natural knee joints with artificial metal and plastic components. An estimated 634,000 Americans underwent knee replacement in 2019, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). In Samuelson’s case, she had the lateral — or outer — part of her right knee replaced.
The downside for her and other athletes, even recreational ones, is that engaging in high-intensity sports after knee replacement can cause excessive wear and loosening of the new components, and may require more surgery. Knee replacement doesn’t mean quitting exercise — in fact, doctors encourage physical activity. But it might mean switc.