Can climbing damage your knees?

I all know that mountain climbing can help strengthen the body, but there are also many taboos in mountain climbing. Many people are not suitable for mountain climbing. If you feel unwell, you should not climb the mountain. This will have a bad effect on your health and disease recovery. How much damage does mountain climbing do to the knees? Can mountain climbing damage your knee joints? This is a question that everyone is concerned about. Let's take a look at it together:

The load on the knee joint varies greatly with the movement and gait of the human body. The static force on the knee joint in standing position (both feet on the ground) is 0.43 times the body weight, while it can reach 3.02 times the body weight when walking and 4.25 times the body weight when climbing. It is often seen that some elderly people are unable to come down the mountain after climbing. This is because the load on the joints during climbing is four or five times that of normal times, and the joints cannot bear it.

Mountain climbing has its disadvantages; it causes greater wear and tear on the knee joints. Due to the effect of gravity, the pressure on the knee joints by the human body increases four to five times compared to walking on the ground. The friction between the patella, meniscus and articular surface increases, which can easily cause injury. Especially for middle-aged and elderly people, bone loss is inevitable due to aging. Therefore, once worn out, it is almost impossible to recover. This is the reason why many middle-aged and elderly friends feel swelling and pain in their knee joints after climbing mountains, and may even be unable to climb again. In recent times, the media has discussed a lot about whether middle-aged and elderly people are suitable for participating in mountain climbing activities, mainly considering the wear and tear on the knee joints.

When people go up a mountain, 1) the quadriceps muscle contracts forcefully, causing repeated friction and collision between the articular surfaces of the patella and femur, which causes damage to the patellar cartilage surface, partial necrosis, and peeling. Over time, this can lead to "patellar chondromalacia" which is difficult to heal. Symptoms include: dull pain in the knee, inability to accurately locate the pain, and fear of exerting force on the knee when climbing mountains. 2) The quadriceps muscle moves repeatedly, and the tendon and bone and the tendon move frequently relative to each other, which overloads the bursa with pressure, causes local temperature rise and inflammation, increases exudate, and creates tension in the bursa, causing pain. Symptoms include: swelling in the corresponding area, suprapatellar bursa (fullness above the patella, floating patella test +); subpatellar bursa (disappearance of the knee pit, pain). In mild cases, the exudate is small and can be absorbed after a few days of rest. Severe cases. There is a lot of exudate, obvious swelling of the entire knee, limited flexion and extension, and improper treatment, which will turn into chronic bursitis and cause recurrence when exerted.

After the above introduction, we can know that climbing mountains does have an impact on our knee joints. If there is a problem with our knee joints, we should not climb mountains, especially the elderly with poor legs and feet. We must do it within our ability. We must also avoid knee joint injuries in daily life. Protecting the knee joints is very important for each of us.