Drakensberg Wilderness Hiking South Africa - Mountain of the Dragons - Where Adventure beckons.....: HIKING THE WILDERNESS

"I’VE LET MADNESS POUR OUT OF MY SOUL TO SWIRL AMONGST THE VASTNESS OF THE WILDERNESS”

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HIKING THE WILDERNESS

CARING FOR YOUR KNEES AND FEET

The human knee is a troublesome thing, aching, breaking, and creaking at the slightest provocation. So where are we going wrong?

Walkers don’t often see themselves as sportspeople, but if you are going for an eight-hour walk, you are putting as much stress as someone who plays squash or going running a couple of times a week. Women are more prone to bio-mechanical injuries because their wider hips give them a shifting centre of gravity.

When people first experience knee pain, often they accept it or try to manage it. When it becomes a problem, you might buy a pair of trekking poles. These work, but only to a limited degree. You can help the symptoms improve, but the underlying cause is still there.

The most common knee injuries

Walkers often complain of knee pain on descents, pain in the inside knee or behind the knee-cap, and pain in the outside knee.

The causes

Everyone has a distinctive gait which becomes more exaggerated as we get older. Very few people have perfect gait, with the body’s weight aligned perfectly through the feet, ankles, knees, and hips. Most people have a slight bio-mechanical imbalance, which your body will compensate for – from the feet upwards – in an attempt to bring the center of balance back in over the feet. It could be a roll of the foot, a flick of the ankle, or an outward or inward movement of the knee. However, in some people, there is excessive movement, and it concentrates pressure on a part of the joint that can’t carry that kind of load. If your knees hurt, you have to stop the movement and encourage the body to adopt a more neutral position. You can do that with off-the-peg or custom-made orthotics.

Even if it’s the jarring of a steep down-hill that brings on the symptoms of pain or discomfort, it’s only an aggravating factor, not the cause. Most knee injuries relate to excessive movement in the joint, rather than shock transferred through the limb. Cushioning or shock-absorbing insoles can add another kind of movement.

However, orthotics – EVA sport insoles personalized to cradle and lift the foot – fit inside the boot and hold the foot in a more neutral position to control excessive movement. This reduces stress on the joints and soft tissues in the legs and lower back. You can buy off-the-peg orthotics or have them fitted by a qualified podiatrist.

Knee injuries caused by a twist, tear or knock will usually repair with a few weeks of rehab and rest. If, however, your injury ‘just happened’; if the pain worsens with activity, but clears up when you lay off, then you may have a bio-mechanical problem. This won’t just go; it will need specialist attention if you want to stay active. Ask your doctor for advice, or make an appointment with a podiatrist.

Coping with age

It’s not inevitable that you’ll have aches and pains as you get older. Problems appear because as the body ages, the degree of discrepancy in skeletal misalignment increases: the collagen which makes up tendons and ligaments becomes less resilient, so things are more like to snap rather than spring back into place. People start to have problems such as fallen arches, which become set in position. It sounds depressing, but the good news is that this process is not irreversible. Over time the orthotic encourages the ligaments and tendons to stretch back, allowing the foot to adopt a more relaxed neutral position when non-weight bearing, and to be less gnarly. Hiking is one of the best ways to stay active in later life, but as you get older you can’t take your body for granted.

Make your knees last a lifetime

There are three things you can do to ensure your knees are still in good order when you are hiking the wilderness in your dotage.

First, every time you go out, take it steady for the first five minutes of your walk, and don’t burn up the first hill you come to. This will dramatically reduce your chances of sustaining a knee injury.

Second, get into the habit of stretching your hamstring, Achilles, and quads afterwards. This stop the leg muscles from contracting and shortening after exercise.

Third, if you go to a gym, build some knee-strengthening exercises – leg extensions and squats – into your work—out. Speak to your gym about this as it’s important to build balanced muscle groups that work together, so as not to pull the limb out of alignment. Some osteopaths also recommend glucosamine sulphate supplements. This promotes cartilage repair and make joints more resilient.

Blister advice

The old wives’ tale says to rub surgical spirits or perfume into your feet to harden up the skin. This works, but large blisters can form between the hard layer and the soft skin beneath. So what can you do to prevent them? Try these if you are prone to blisters, or wearing in a new pair of boots.

Wear a thin sports-type sock under your thicker walking socks to lessen friction between the boot and your skin.

Rub talcum powder into your feet before you set off.

If you’ve got a ‘hot spot’ – an area that’s prone to blisters no matter how far you walk – stick a hydro-colloid plaster, or strap zinc oxide plaster, surgical tape or micro-pore tape over it before you set off.

Ordinary plasters fold and rub against the sock and your skin – especially in a moist environment – so they’re more likely to give you a blister than save you from getting one!

We as hikers, explorers, and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

The End.

Safe Hiking.