Hiker's Knee Fixed In A Week?

In this episode, I explore the odd phenomenon that sometimes occurs: a hiker starts a training program and sees 'dramatic' changes in pain within the week.

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking through a bit of a strange phenomenon, which often comes up when we are going through a hiker's journey as they try

[0:12] to overcome pain or injury. Now, the context of this is I'm going to talk about knee pain, but this does apply to a lot of different pain journeys. Now, quite often we'll have a situation where, you know, obviously a lot of hikers out there struggle with knee pain. It's probably the number one concern I hear from hikers all around the world. A lot of people struggle with it. And a lot of people over the years reach out to me specifically to help with their knee pain because this is one of my specialities and I've helped many, many, many people over the years. Now, usually when it comes to overcoming knee pain or overcoming any type of pain on the trail, it's usually a long-term journey. It usually takes a while of applying the right strength training, the right mobility training, the right exposure therapy, the right cardiovascular training, the right education, the right pain relief strategies, all of these things where we can build off week by week by week. We can slowly change things, slowly create adaptations, slowly introduce more and more challenge for things to happen. Usually pain prevention journeys, especially if you've been dealing with them for a while, it's a long-term journey and any type of training usually will take a while before differences occur.

[1:23] But every once in a while, and I won't say this is super, super common, but it does happen every once in a while, we get a bit of a different situation.

[1:32] We take someone on onto our training programs. We have a chat. They decide to come on board our training. We put together a program for you, and they go through the program for a week or so. They go through some strength sessions, some recovery mobility, maybe some cardio, or whatever it may be. And after a week or so, they report back saying, oh my gosh, my knee is feeling so much better.

[1:58] Now, this isn't super common, but it probably has happened a dozen or so times over the last couple of years or last few years. And it's an interesting phenomenon. Phenomenon. Always get that word. Now, to be clear, before I go any further, while this situation does happen, and it's happened numerous times, I am not claiming that my programs or my training can fix your knee pain in a week. I am not claiming that I can fix your knee pain in a week or anything like that because I know it takes much longer to develop strength, to develop endurance, develop resilience, and make those long-term changes I was talking about before. It absolutely takes longer. You can see some short changes in regards to strength, but not to the significant levels that that's going to affect your knee pain.

[2:50] So if all those things that we're aiming for do take quite a while, why do we occasionally see people who see such quick changes? Well, some people put it down to their strength. But as I said, it does take longer for that to develop. Some people put it down to their mobility and they're like, hey, I did the mobility session a couple of times this week and I'm feeling so much looser. But that in itself does take a lot more time to actually see significant lasting changes to mobility. Does take a lot more time to get the effects out of exposure therapy or whatever it may be, any of the strategies, it really does take a while. So if nothing's really had a time to change in the body significantly, what is actually causing this difference that we can see when people say, I feel so much better?

[3:35] Well, usually when it comes down to it, it comes from one of three things or a combination of these three things. Number one, it can often happen not from what these people are doing in the program. So not the strength, not the training or whatever may be, but what they're not doing in the sense of people who struggle with pain. More often than not, they are doing certain things in their week or certain things in their month, which is contributing to the pain. Maybe there's certain exercises you're doing and you just keep on trying them. It's just a little bit too much for your knees. Maybe you're doing loads of pack walking and you've been pushing the pack weight and maybe that's just a little bit too much. Maybe you're doing lots and lots of hiking and it's just too much. Or maybe there's just a combination of things. It's not one thing you're like, ah, that leads to pain, but it's just all this stuff you're doing over the week, which ends up just overloading the knee a little bit.

[4:30] And more often than not, we'll have people come on board our training and we end up actually doing less work than what they've done previously. We may do less hiking. We may do lighter pack training. We may do less strength or less aggressive strength initially because we start off slow and we build things up. And more often than not, it's purely just them pulling away things that they've been doing and making them do, make sure they're not doing those aggravators. That's where we see the change. So that's often one. It's not so much about the new stuff they're doing, but the stuff they're not doing or the stuff they're minimizing.

[5:05] The second situation or a second contributor to this we often see is just purely from movement. Now, sometimes when people struggle with knee pain, if they've been dealing with it for a while, sometimes people get so hesitant with their knee that they end up being really, really restricted with their movement. To one extent, it can be just like, hey, I'm super cautious on my knee. I'm not doing anything. I'm not testing it. I'm not doing anything. And I'm just kind of really, really giving it rest. Or some people like, okay, I do some certain movements, certain exercises, but I don't really do anything too out of the ordinary or whatever it is.

[5:41] Sometimes just purely just getting the knee and the body moving again, that in itself is enough to reduce pain in the sense of the people who have just been sitting around hoping the knee is going to get better from rest. And it's not doing that sometimes actually getting the body moving again and And getting you going through some sessions and getting you to do some walking and getting you to do this can actually be enough to say, hey, that's enough for the pain to go down. Or for the people who are very restricted in movements, maybe they're already doing walking, but they kind of haven't really been on strength training, whatever it may be. Sometimes just exploring some different types of training, some different types of movements can help in itself. And also sometimes it's not any specific things, but purely just movements.

[6:24] And then the third thing that can often happen here is purely having a positive outlook in the sense of a lot of people, when they struggle with knee pain, they've dealt with it for ages, ages, ages. They come on board our program and they come on us because they trust us, because they've seen our views, they've heard the stories, and they know we are specialists when it comes down to this. And some people purely from stepping on board the program are just feeling so much more positive. They finally got somewhere to put their time into. They finally got someone they can trust. Yeah. And that is enough to change their pain. Because when it comes down to pain, there is a component, which is funnily enough, pain does get affected by our mental outlook. It's not to say all pain is in your head and people often talk about this subject and can completely like just take it too far. But there is a mental component to pain. And if we are negative, either in our general life or just negative about our knee, that can actually make our knee pain worse. But if we're positive, if we're optimistic, if we're hopeful, if we're thinking, hey, this is, I'm doing stuff which is going to help, even if it's not specifically that stuff, purely you having a positive outlook can actually affect the presentation of pain to a degree. Pretty wild, but it does happen.

[7:37] So when we're seeing these quick changes, it's usually one, two, or three of these combined where we see these changes.

[7:44] So with that being said, what is the lesson here? Because usually, I'm not just talking about something, you know, I usually have a point. Realistically, there's a few lessons here that I want to get across. And for anyone who's struggling with pain, these are important to be aware of. Number one is if you start a training program, doesn't matter what training program it is, but if you start a program, you struggle with pain and within a week, you start to see some amazing results and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. That's awesome. That's great. But please just know you need to stay the course. You need to remember that it is going to take weeks and potentially months for genuine adaptations to see long-term change to come into place. It's going to take a long time for that strength to build up significantly. It's going to take a long time for the endurance, for the resilience, all of that stuff. So you need to stay the course. Yes, those short-term changes are great.

[8:43] You'd know there's so much more to come. And this is really, really important to remember, because if you see really, really short-term changes in week one, and then you keep on going, and then week three, like, oh my gosh, the pain comes back. It's very easy for us to get derailed if we're kind of thinking in that short-term mentality, thinking, oh my gosh, I fixed it, and now I'm injured again. It doesn't work like that. You saw some really good results initially, but you're still way too early for things to happen. Keep that in mind, because you don't want to get derailed when you're on the right track. The other thing is if you do see someone online, which you'll often see, people can't often promote this, is they'll often claim they've fixed pain issues within a week. They say, hey, we did a few sessions and we fixed their foot pain, or we did a few sessions, we changed this, and all of a sudden everything's better. It's really, really, really, really misleading. Yes, people can see a nice change. As I said, There are things that can see a really good temporary change, and that's all well and good, but no one can claim they fixed you in a week. No one can claim it's a long-term change in a week. No one can claim this, and if they are, they've been really misleading. So don't get sucked in there. Yeah, you can explore it. You can chat with it and maybe do those things. That's cool, but take that kind of timeline with a grain of salt.

[9:57] And then finally, even though we're talking about this, and even though this is a known, phenomenon, cut that word right this time, even though this can happen, to be clear, if you are struggling with pain, this doesn't happen to everyone. So if you're hearing these words and you're like, hey, I've started a new program and I haven't seen this nice change in a week, even though I'm doing less, even though maybe I'm doing new movements, even though I'm feeling a bit more positive, and I haven't actually seen these changes you're talking about, just know it doesn't happen to everyone. It is relatively rare. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hikers with knee pain and other types of pain over the years. This has happened maybe a dozen times with this quick short-term change, but it does happen. It's worth talking about, but I just want to highlight it's not super common. So if you don't experience this, you're not out of the ordinary.

[10:45] So with that being said, I'm going to finish things up here. I did figure this was an interesting topic to talk about because it does come up every once in a while. And I do see people talking about this online, both from someone who's gone through this and said, hey, I did this stuff and I saw amazing results in a week. And then I also see coaches, you know, pushing, you know, I don't want to say pushing, but promoting their training saying, hey, we saw these amazing results in a week. You can too.

[11:10] Well, you know, hopefully now, you know, not quite as simple as that. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap up this episode today. I hope this was useful. I hope this is insightful. I hope a few people got some things out of it. Last thing I will sort of say, as I always do on these episodes, if you were interested in getting a bit of help with your pain for hiking, if you struggle with knee pain and you're like, you know what?

[11:33] I am interested in making a bit of a change. I'm interested in building up my strength, my endurance. I'm interested in exploring this and exposure therapy and doing the right cardio and doing the right pain relief and all of that stuff. And you want to learn a little bit more about what we do through Summit Strength, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. Now on that page, there's a big video which talks quite a bit about our program. And if it was something you wanted to learn a bit more about, there's a link on that page. You can book a free call with our team. We can have a bit of a chat, learn about you, your situation, what you got going on and ultimately see if we might be able to help you out. It won't be fixed in a week or a super short-term change, but we do have a pretty good track record of helping people over the long term and getting in a much more comfortable position for their hiking. So if you want to find out a little bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online and you can take it from there. So with that being said, thank you for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it. Hope it helps a few people and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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