A month back I mentioned how I had been told I needed to get up and about more regularly, leading me to go for a brisk walks. Not long after that breaking news my right knee started to play up. This was something I had been worried about before my trip to the Stirling Ranges with Howsie. A heavy pack with good length steep hikes, plus of course all the climbing, had weighed on my mind. Were my legs up to it or not? During and after the trip I had no problem. It was not until I started my brisk unladen walks that things started to unravel:
When it got to the point that I felt I should not be heading out for the regular walks, it was back to the physio. Here is where we started to unpick what was happening. Over several sessions this resulted in us tracing things back quite a way. I feel like I have managed to stay relatively injury free when it comes to climbing. Yes I have had a few spills that have slowed me down but I have always bounced back. But my problems started before my climbing did. I have always had a duck-footed gait, I realised this after a nasty groundball during a silly solo:
I’ve read that adults can develop this gait from muscle imbalances, sedentary habits, or skeletal alignment. Mine has been with me the whole time I have played hockey, which I started at a tender age when I ran every day so it was not due to sedentary habits. I have also in my younger days had a healthy balance of upper and lower body sports. So I struggle to see that it was a muscle imbalance, but it could have been. As for skeletal alignment, I have no idea. Regardless of why I have had this silly walk for decades, it can result in joint pains:
The solo I feel from, which Kym will recall from 2013, is what alerted me to all of this. Bad compression damage in both ankles meant I had to learn to walking with better alignment from the hips down. Then three year later in 2016 came a fall off Wiggin’s indoor wall. One that ended with a nasty landing on a low hold. Hollering out in pain, and then saying don’t worry I’ll be right for our Welly Dam session in the morning. I was not. I severely damaged my deltoid ligament on the inside of my right ankle. That took some work before I was back up and out:
Next in line came a fall on my own creation at the place that Howsie and I were heading to today. Back in 2024 I took a quite long pendulum swing that saw me damage my medial collateral ligament, on the inside of my right knee. I have to ask why does it always have to be my right side? That again slowed me down for a wee bit but I bounced back. Or so I thought, until I started my brisk walks. And this recent issue came down to my safety sandals. Or more precisely the biomechanics of my body, and how my safety sandals don’t help with that:
The previously busted right ankle means my right foot arch is weak and collapses. This then pulls on the inside of my right knee, which has already been weakened. Added to that while I have learnt to walk not quite so duck-footed, it is a bad habit that I do slip back into at times and is one that again puts pressure on the inside of my knees. The really funny thing about this, is that walking aggravates it by climbing does not. Again thinking biomechanics it makes sense. Climbing puts pressure on the legs in a purposeful and direct way:
Very different to when you walk. The solution, other than physio and rehab exercises to build up the necessary muscles and once again learn how to walk, is to wear shoes. Admittedly shoes with a heighted arch for added support and to improve my skeletal alignment. The safety sandals, at least when I go walking, have to be left behind. Today Howsie decided not to jump on my route, which I fell off two years back. Despite me packing the essential few bits of trad gear in my crate. Due to the conditions, so he says, which resulted in us both falling of the last line several times:
Sandbagged 