Hey all,
I have recently developed knee and a little bit of ankle pain. I was wondering if any of the alums have experienced pain years later as a result of the abuse their body got from the AT. Admittedly, the knee pain is most likely an old cycling injury that is coming back, but I still wonder the the AT is going to reduce the health of my joints.
TurkeyBacon
TurkeyBacon02
Hey fellow '02er!
I wonder the same thing, sometimes. Was it the hiking, or was I just destined to have crummy knees? I never had knee pain before the AT, though.
I had mine x-rayed last year, and there’s no sign of arthritis yet, but they sure are crepitant; they crunch and grind with every stair step. It sounds pretty nasty, but they feel OK most of the time.
I figure I’ll never know the answer. Meanwhile, I try to work extra hard on keeping my legs strong when I go to the gym. As long as I keep up the weight training, they feel good.
Chipper
When I was 27, I joined Hikanation (precursor to ADT). I hiked 3300 miles, carrying a much heavier pack than is typical today, usually in the 50 to 65 pound range depending on where we were and time of year. I hiked 11 months and had no problems other than a cyst which developed on my lower back from the hip belt rubbing - this eventually went away, and the typical blisters due to the heavy leather boots that were the rule back then and the heavy packs. I had no lasting physical problems from the hike.
I’ve continued hiking several times a year since then, but nothing that extensive. I am 53 now. Last summer I did a 170 mile section hike with no problems other than a numb toe - I think this is a result of the much lighter weight hiking shoes, MUCH lighter packs, and pushing substantially more miles than we used to do. The PA rocks and flooding may have had something to do with it too!
I’m sure everyone’s mileage will vary in this regard, but I don’t feel that I’ve done any permanent damage to my body. I did switch out to lightweight gear and use trecking poles now to help assure no problems develop now that I’m getting on into the second half century.
Lyle
TurkeyBacon02, the research results in this area, and there’s a lot of it, are ambiguous. What’s agreed is that we lose chondrocytes as we age, these are the cells that make up and repair cartilage. Some say this is because of accumulated mechanical damage, due to things like hiking, and others say that we’d lose chondrocytes no matter what we did, that loss is a predictable part of aging.
Brian Osborne
A lot of hikers damage their knees on the AT, due to all the steep climbs and descents. I did, but they eventually got better, though they still act up on really steep trails. The PCT is much easier on the knees. If you know you have problems, there are things you can do that help: hiking poles, lighter pack, leg strengthening and stretching exercises.
Ginny
The AT is hard on the joints, that is for sure. We completed a sobo thru in Nov '04 and I still had bad knee pain prior to our the beginning of our sobo PCT thru hike in June’05. I could do very little training for the PCT. I have always done a lot of both trail and road running prior to the AT but couldn’t run at all after it. A month or so before the PCT my wife and I started taking glucosamine and I really didn’t notice a difference. I even had seious doubts of completing even the state of Washington, but I kept taking the pills and dealing with the pain. It gradually went away and by midway thru Oregon or so I had no knee pain and found that I could run agian. Maybe there is some truth to the glucosamine or maybe the PCT is just something special
Little Bump
The PCT, while tough in very many ways, is physically far easier on the body. I never had a single day of muscle aches or pain on that trail. On the AT it was exactly the opposite - not a single day withOUT aching joints and muscles. Both were amazing experiences.
Chipper