How Joan Overcame Knee Pain During Downhill Hiking And Trained For The Pacific Crest Trail

At 61 years old, Joan decided to do her first thru-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Learn how she used the Online Summit Program to overcome knee pain during descents, strengthen her joints and give her the physical confidence to tackle her big adventure.

How To Train For
The Pacific Crest Trail

Joan had a long history of sports performance. She was a competitive tennis player in college, ran track and then was a competitive cyclist for many, many years. On top of this, she used to work as a physical therapist. So she had a solid understanding of how the body worked and training for athletic pursuits. But she was relatively inexperienced when it came to overnight or extended hiking.

When she reached out to me, her big concern was knee pain during downhill hiking. On top of this, she was wary of a recurrence of plantar fasciitis. She was three months out from her start date to start the Pacific Crest Trail southbound. And she wanted to know how to train for a thru-hike and also to ensure she was in a physical position to not only to avoid injury and survive this adventure but to be able to enjoy her time on the trail as well!
As always, the first step in the process was the online Ready To Trek assessment. Here we identified a few big areas to work on:

• Improving mobility in the hips and ankles (these joints were not outrageously tight, but they were slightly restricted)
• Improving strength in the glutes and quads (this was essential for both foot and knee stability)

On top of this, we needed to prepare for body for long days on the trail, stabilise her feet and ensure that she had enough resilience to survive months of hiking!

To attack this, we decided to focus on:

• Home strength, stability and mobility training
• A gradual hiking progression plan
• Loaded pack walking (around the neighbourhood)
• Some additional, low-intensity cycling

Over time, we progressed the loaded pack walking into loaded hill and stair repeats. And we graduated the cycling into some higher intensity intervals.

This process wasn't entirely smooth. At times, Joan did get frustrated. She was feeling stronger and fitter, but she was still getting pain in her knees during descents.

But she stuck with the training, trusted the process and, bit by bit, things started to turn around.

Two weeks before she set off on the Pacific Crest Trail, she went on her longest training hike yet, which had some serious elevation, and was completely pain-free!

So how did she do on the Pacific Crest Trail? Well, that remains to be seen! At the time of writing, she has only just begun.

But I have total faith that she will crush it.

If you were training for the Pacific Crest Trail, or you were struggling with knee pain during descents, or just wanted some extra help in your preparations, you can find the Online Summit Program here:

The Online Summit Program