How did someone with bad knees make it through the hardest camino thru hike?

Pretty well actually. surprisingly well I would say. I suffer from a weak right knee. Any hike that involves long distances, fast hiking, or any amount of descends or ascends will cause my right knee to flare up. After that, the pain just starts to build.

I ended the my multi-day hike with no knee pain at all. Its more surprising to me that the hike was the Camino primitivo, a trail where you pray for any type of flat surface and it only teases you with short stretches of roads before giving you inclines covered in rocks and boulders. This is constant across the rolling hills of Asturias, Spain.

I did a few things to prevent my knee pain so can not isolate the one variable that made the biggest difference. I do have a theory that it was one of the few things I will talk about. I do also feel like the sum of all these things helped a lot. Let me start with the thing that probably made the most difference.

Trekking Poles

I never used trekking poles before. I figured it was just extra weight. I also didn't have bad knees at the time. What a naive hiker I was. My infatuation of trekking poles would soon come as a surprise.

Trekking poles do so so much when hiking. They act as a third and forth leg providing stability on rocky paths and uneven declines. They can be used to take pressure off your legs, and so your knees, when climbing rocks by helping you pull yourself up. When descending, the act that causes the most stress on my knees, the poles can be used to bare some of the weight so I can rest my legs down much more softly than I would without.

If I were to guess which one of these methods helped me the most, I would guess the trekking poles. The Camino Primitivo was filled with uneven rocky trails and hills that ranged from mild inclination to some areas that felt like I was scaling a mountain. 

I felt less fatigue overall than I did on any other camino. My feet felt great and my legs even better. I will never leave my trekking poles behind on any future Camino.

Hiking my Own Hike

I was nervous to even start this Camino. The hikes I had taken before this one ended in a mild knee pain after about 2 hours of slow trekking. I was going to put myself in a position where I might be hours away from a town in the middle of a mountain. I was actually quite fearful.

My plan was to take it slow and see how I feel. Let my legs warm up first than slowly push myself harder. I set a timer to stop every 30 minutes and take a quick 2 min break. I later moved this break up to 45 minutes and I would probably move it up to an hour so I could cover more distance.

The second thing I did is moderate my pace. I took it real slow. So slow that one of the longest hiking days, where I covered 28 kilometers, took me way to long. Luckily, I had a place reserved for the night, but If I didn't, I dont think I would have found a bed in an albergue that late in the day. Later I started to increase my speed but never to something that was relatively fast. I let other hikers pass me without embarrassment.

I was learning as I went. Slowly I was pushing myself harder and any sign of pressure or pain I would take a break for a couple of minutes and I was good to go for another 45 minutes. The only time I felt any pressure was in one section that was steep inclines met by steep declines, natures cruel trick.

Knee Brace

When my knee pain started to appear, the first time it made it impossible to walk for days, I researched all I could for solutions. I would have preferred to go to a specialist, and I even made an appointment, but this was during the start of the pandemic and the country which I live in shut down completely.

My first idea was to get a knee brace. Like a boxer wrapping his wrists, I figured the knee brace would strengthen my knee against impacts. I found a good quality knee brace and tied it tightly around my knee. Most of the information I found online from physical therapists and doctors said the knee brace shouldn't do much, but I figured it wouldn't hurt either. 

When wearing the brace I felt no pain, but strangely when I would take it off and walk, like when I got to town and went for dinner, I did feel a pressure at my knee. A pressure that I associate with the first signs of knee pain. With this information in mind, I can only assume it had been helping.

Strengthen your Muscles

I had been doing resistance training for about 3 years now. All my legs muscles and glutes were prepared for the journey. Even after this physical preparation, my knees were quite weak and something like running was out of the question.

Knee problems can be quite broad and until I see a specialist, I can only assume what is wrong with my knee. Therefore, depending on your condition, strengthening your leg muscles may not yield the results you want.

Reduce Weight

Im adding this last one just to add it. I really didn’t reduce my weight by much but this is definitely the lightest I have been as a “caminante” (what my girlfriend and I call a pilgrim who walks the camino). Im including this because it’s also obvious. Lower your total weight and the force on your knees will be less.

My belief is a hiker should always be trying to strive for less weight and more practical gear. So hopefully as I gain experience my base weight will shrink offsetting my aging knees.

Conclusion

I came into the hike worried I wouldn't finish and ended the multi-day hike without any knee pain and overall less fatigue than other Caminos I have ever done. This experience has assured me that even though I have a horribly weak right knee, I dont have to give up hiking. I can actually keep hiking at the distances I had before my weak knee. 

If you suffer from knee pains I would implore you to try one or even all of the things mentioned. You could even go a step further and cut down the distance traveled in a day. If you leave this article with anything let it be that even with weak knees you can still do it.