Hiking & Healthy Joints

Smart hiking is less about pushing through discomfort and more about managing load, using the right tools, and recruiting the right muscles to maintain desirable movement quality. ⁠ ⁠⁠The single most important principle to remember is: Do not hike through pain. When a joint or the lower back is symptomatic, the nervous system automatically changes how you move to protect the painful area. These pain-driven adaptations — altered muscle recruitment, guarding, and compensated joint mechanics — can persist even after the pain settles, and they push loads onto tissues and joints in ways they were not designed to handle, creating more irritation, more compensation, and a self-reinforcing cycle of dysfunction. In short, moving well matters more than moving far. ⁠ ⁠⁠Before you hit the trail, here are a few smart tips to help reduce unnecessary strain and keep your body moving the way it should.

1. Be Mindful of Your Pack or Vest Weight 

Heavy loads dramatically increase the shearing and compressive forces across the lumbar spine. In a musculoskeletal modeling study, walking uphill with a 40% body-weight shoulder-borne pack produced peak lumbar shear forces of roughly 1.57 times body weight and compressive forces exceeding five times body weight — values above recommended safety limits and associated with overuse injury of the low back. While general ergonomic reviews suggest not exceeding 40% of your body mass, that ceiling is a maximum for conditioned load carriers, not a target. ⁠ ⁠Keeping a pack or weighted vest at roughly 10–15% of your body weight (body weight × 0.10–0.15) keeps lumbar shear stress far lower and leaves a comfortable safety margin. Importantly, body-weight-percentage limits alone are imperfect and can still overload the spine depending on how the load sits and how you move, which is exactly why load should be minimized further if you’re currently in pain. ⁠ ⁠A painful back changes your movement strategy, and adding weight on top of an already compensating system multiplies the abnormal loading that drives tissue irritation.

2. Use Trekking Poles, Especially Downhill 

Downhill hiking loads the lower body far more than level ground because the legs must absorb impact with every step, and this is compounded by pack weight. Trekking poles offload that work. ⁠ ⁠Poles significantly reduce the ground reaction force, knee joint moment, and both tibiofemoral compressive and shear forces by roughly 12–25% during steep downhill walking. Partly by transmitting force through the arms and partly by encouraging a slight forward lean that shortens the knee's moment arm. ⁠ ⁠These reductions in force, moment, and power at the ankle, knee, and hip hold true across pack weights, including day-pack and heavier expedition loads. Less joint loading means less strain on tissues that are already working hard — and crucially, less reason for the body to adopt the protective, compensatory movement patterns that pain provokes.

3. Use Your Glutes 

The gluteal muscles are the primary engine for climbing and a key stabilizer for both the lower back and the knees. Rather than relying on the quads to pull you uphill, drive the ground away with the glutes and maintain a slight forward lean, positioning the hip to generate more power.  ⁠ ⁠Gluteus maximus force demand is highest during uphill and loaded walking, underscoring its central role in propulsion. Strong, well-timed glute activation therefore protects both the spine above and the knees below by keeping the pelvis and lower limb aligned and sharing load appropriately. 

What’s the Common Thread?  

Load management, trekking poles, and glute recruitment all serve one goal — keeping your joints loaded the way they’re designed to be loaded so you never have to move in pain. ⁠ ⁠Pain reorganizes motor control in the spinal cord and brain, degrading proprioception and muscle coordination and producing altered, often persistent movement patterns. Those compensations concentrate stress on vulnerable tissues and joints, feeding the very dysfunction they were meant to avoid. ⁠ ⁠The practical takeaway is to respect early pain as a signal: lighten the load, add poles, engage the glutes, and address the source rather than hiking through it.

References 

Alexander and Schwameder, Gait & Posture, 2016 

Baida et al., Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2018 

Bohne and Abendroth-Smith, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2007 

Genitrini et al., IJERPH, 2022 

Kantak et al., Physical Therapy, 2022 

Oyama et al., PLoS One, 2025 

Schwameder et al., Journal of Sports Sciences, 1999 

Sterling et al., The Journal of Pain, 2001 

Sturdy et al., Journal of Biomechanics, 2024 

Sturdy et al., Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 2025