Injuries com in many shapes, sizes, and places, so it’s difficult to make generalizations about how to avoid them or recover from them. Each one is unique in its own way, especially when you consider that each of us is unique. Still, certain injures are more common that others. If you can figure out how to avoid these, you are ahead of the game!

This troublesome heel pain is caused by inflammation of the Achilles tendon. The Achilles is the large tendon connecting the two major calf muscles – the gastrocnemius and soleus – to the back of the heel bone. Under too much stress, the tendon tightens and is forces to work too hard. This causes it to become inflamed (tendinitis) and, over time, can produce a covering of scar tissue that is less flexible that the tendon. If the inflamed Achilles continues to be stressed, it can tear or rupture.

Symptoms: Dull or sharp pain anywhere along the back of the tendon, but usually close to the heel. Experience of limited ankle flexibility and redness or heat over the painful area. A nodule (lumpy buildup of scar tissue) that can be felt on the tendon. A crackling sound (scar tissue rubbing against the tendon when the ankle moves.)

One of the most common knee injuries, chondromalacia is a softening or wearing away and cracking of the cartilage under the kneecap, resulting in pain and inflammation. The cartilage becomes like sandpaper because the kneecap is not riding smoothly over the knees

Symptoms: Pain beneath or on the side of the kneecap. Pain can worsen over a year or so and is most severe after you run hills. Swelling is also present. In severe cases, you can feel – and eventually hear – grinding as the rough cartilage rubs against cartilage when the knee is flexed.

This condition results in inflammation and pain on the outside of the knee where the iliotibial (IT) band (a ligament that runs along the outside of the thigh) rubs against the femur, the large leg bone.

Symptoms: A dull ache that stars when you’re a mile or two into a run, lingers during the run, but disappears soon after you stop. In severe cases, pain can be sharp, and the outside of the knee can be tender or swollen.

This is an inflammation of the plantar fascia, a thick, fibrous band of tissue in the bottom of the foot, running from the heel to the base of the toes. When placed under too much stress, the fascia stretches too far and tears, which causes inflammation of the fascia and surrounding tissues. The tears are soon covered with scar tissue, which is less flexible that the fascia and only aggravates the problem.

Symptoms: Pain at the base of the heel often described as feeling like a bone bruise. It is most severe in the morning when you get out of bed or at the beginning of a run, because the fascia is tighter at those times. The pain may fade as you walk or run. Often, a runner will change stride to alleviate pain, but this only provides temporary relief. A bone sure may also develop at the heel, where the fascia has stared to tear away.

A very common and nagging injury, shin splints are an inflammation of the tendons on the inside of the front of the lower leg. (Sports-medicine specialists don’t like to use the term “shin splints” because it commonly refers to several lower-leg injuries.) Shin splints can be tendinitis of the lower leg.

Symptoms: An aching, throbbing, or tenderness along the inside of the shin (though it can radiate to the outside also) about halfway down, or all along the shin from the ankle to the knee. Pain when you press on the inflamed area. Pain is most severe at the start of a run, but it can go away during the run once the muscles are loosened up (unlike stress fracture of the shinbone, which hurts all the time). With tendinitis, pain resumes after the run.