When I retired early on health grounds after spending too many years sitting behind a desk and started walking more I was startled to find that on steep descents on some of my old favourite hill walks my knees hurt. I hoped that more walking would soon strengthen them up again but it didn't. They hurt more. My doctor told me I was simply an old man with worn out knees and I'd have to learn to live with it.
I bought a pair of walking poles and they helped a lot. But I wanted to understand what had happened to my legs and knees so that they now hurt. I realised that due to my anticipation of knee pain when making a large downhill step I was gingerly reaching forward and down with an outstretched straight leg in order to minimise the drop and therefore the pain. That meant that when I finally dropped down onto the outstretched foot the shock of all my weight hitting the ground on that foot was delivered straight to my knee joint. Whereas when I was younger, lighter, and fitter, I used to bound down such downhill slopes. I would even sometimes take a big jump downwards when there was a good secure landing place. But I never used to hit the ground and arrest my drop with a straight leg. That would have been far too much of a jolt. Instead I hit the ground with partially bent knees. In that way I was able to cushion the shock of arresting my falling weight by using my thigh muscles. My knees avoided the shock by bending and transferring the load to my muscles. In turn that allowed my falling weight to be arrested over a distance of maybe a foot or more.
Whereas my now elderly timid approach of trying to minimise the drop, partly by fear of pain, partly fear of falling now I was heavier and weaker and more fragile, that was in fact greatly increasing the shock and stress on my knees. Could that in fact be the cause of the knee pain I now suffered?
On some carefully chosen easy safe downhills I tried to relearn my old technique of dropping down onto a bent knee. It seemed to work. No knee pain. I gradually worked it up to steeper slopes. Still no knee pain. Eventually I ended up being able to bound down downhill slopes, just rather more slowly and carefully, as befitted an elderly person.
I've never used the walking poles since. What had happened was that I'd been ambushed by my elderly weakness, pain, and timidity, into adopting a downhill walking gait which had started to damage my knees and increase the pain, thus starting a vicious cycle of increasing pain and increasing knee damage.
I've used one stick for walking ever since I broke my leg back in my dim and distant youth. I've tried two - just can't get the hang of it at all. Now I tend to carry mine more than use it but it's there for poking mires, crossing rivers and sometimes even as a monopod.
