I suffered through a knee injury for a long time so I thought it might be helpful if I shared my experiences with others. My knee problems made certain hikes extremely painful but I got over it.
I first hurt my knees on a hike almost 15 years ago. I was on a multi-day backpacking trip with my father. Two days into the trip a major weather system moved in and proceeded to soak us. Our equipment back then wasn't what it was today and the elevation we were at kept us inside clouds for the entirety of the second day. Visibility was zero, it was cold and wet and we were feeling defeated. It wasn't until we stopped to make camp that we fully realized how wet we were. My pack had literally soaked through. Everything in side it was soaked. My down bag was soaked and useless. With temperatures hovering around freezing I think that was the worst night's sleep I'd ever had.
The next morning we woke to pouring rain so we elected to cut our trip short by a couple days and get out. The weight of our packs had increased with the water saturation and the hike out was long. When we reached the low lands we found several bridges washed out and sections of the trail under water for kilometers at a time. I felt like I was in some Vietnam war movie, walking through water knee deep for hours on end.
When I got back my knees were done. It was months before I could walk down a set of stairs without wincing at the pain. I was in university at the time and sitting in those tiny chairs was torture as I had to keep my legs as straight as possible to avoid the pain.
Years passed and hiking got a little better but the pain was always there in my knees. Descents were the worst. I could hike uphill and across flats all day with no issues but as soon as we started to descend all hell would break loose. Since we tend to do a lot of summits this poses a significant problem. I start out fine, we reach the summit and as soon as we start out descent I slow to a crawl.
It all came to head on a hike with Jenn on our way back down from Mount Indefatigable. We were coming down, trying to beat what appeared to be a nasty weather front, back to the car. I was in pain like usual on the descent but then suddenly this time it got worse. The pain was unbearable. I couldn't force myself to move. I was prepared to lay down and stay on the mountain forever. I was popping Motrin like candy. I wanted to cry. I was seriously wondering if I was going to have to crawl off the mountain on my hands and knees. We took a long rest and eventually made it down very slowly and returned to the car far later than I'd have liked. We got lucky and the storm missed us on the other side of the ridge.
After that, our hikes all followed a similar pattern. I was fine on the way up and then in agony on the way down. I hated descents. But no matter how much pain a descent caused, as soon as we got back on flat ground the pain would disappear and I could hike again at full speed across flat terrain.
I eventually caved and went to see a physiotherapist. He had me perform a few motions and deduced that my problem was likely that my quads and glutes were out of balance and that on a descent the quads were pulling the knee cap out of position and causing the pain. He assured me that simple exercise could resolve the issue which was a huge relief as I was dreading that surgery would be my only hope. He gave me a few exercises to work on and sent me on my way.
I went home with great resolve, performed my exercises but nothing changed. The hikes followed the same pattern. I stuck with the exercises and added some low impact jogging to my exercises. Still nothing seemed to change. Running downhill even made the problem worse. After one run down a long hill I found myself barely able to walk for nearly three weeks.
But I stuck to it. I was determined to give exercise a chance. The alternatives meant either giving up hiking or looking into surgery. Neither of which were viable options in my mind. I had learned ways of descending that took the pressure off the knee. It was awkward and slow but got me down without the pain.
Then something magical happened. We were on our way down from a summit. We were rushing and moving more quickly that I thought my knee could handle. I was waiting for it to start complaining but it didn't. I wasn't sure if it was a fluke. Maybe the descent wasn't as difficult as I thought?
Then another descent passed without pain and another. I started walking with a normal stride on my descents and still no pain. Suddenly my knee appeared good again.
It's only been a few months but I've gone through a half-dozen summits with none of the pain I experienced before. I can jog down hills without pain. I don't want to say my knees are perfect again but I'm amazed at the impact a few months of exercise has had. It didn't happen over night either. It might not be the answer for everyone's knee problems but it worked for mine. It's amazing what the body can do when you ask it to.
I'm looking forward to pushing myself more now and seeing how strong I can get my knees. Some simple leg exercises can go a long way but jogging is probably what really got me over the hump. Anyone that says jogging ruins your knees, probably hasn't spent enough time running. I credit jogging as the activity that saved my knees.
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