There’s a few surefire ways to prepare and strengthen your knees for hiking, and just like everything else in life, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Knee pain while hiking can impact the enjoyability of your time outdoors and can even cause you to cut your hiking trips short – two things we don’t want to see you do!
We’ve put together this guide with some functional tips and exercises to help you reduce hiking knee pain so you can stay on the trail longer and have a great time doing it.
How To Strengthen Your Knees For Hiking
Just like strengthening any muscle or body part, you’re going to need to do some specific exercises to build up the muscles that surround and support the knee.
You’ll shift the load off your knees by strengthening these muscles over time.
Don’t worry: you don’t need to be a bodybuilder or to start guzzling protein shakes to benefit from some consistent exercise.
Walk Up And Down Stairs
Walking up and down stairs engages many of the same muscles that hiking does, but you can control the amount of steps you tackle each time.
When walking down stairs, take them one at a time. You can experiment with climbing up stairs one, two, or even three at a time if your physical ability allows.
High school stadiums, local parks, and outdoor auditoriums are great places to find long sets of stairs to practice this on.
Squats
Performing wall squats or free squats build your quads and glutes, which improves your balance and reduces your risk of injury.
Start by going as deep as you can, eventually building up to full-range squats.
Aim to drop down at a steady pace until your knees are as close to 90 degrees as you can manage, but don’t overexert yourself – especially if you have bad knees in the first place.
Maintain your form as you push back up through your heels and return to your original position.
Repeat this for up to 10 repetitions in 3 separate sets.
Take a look at the video below for some tips on performing proper squats:
Side Lying Leg Raises
Lie on your side, with your hips in line with each other (or stacked on top of each other) while bending your bottom leg.
Exhale as you lift the top leg up towards the ceiling, then lower it.
Aim for 10-20 reps (repetitions) per side, completing 3 sets per side.
Here’s a video explaining how to do a side lying leg raise:
Pointed Dog aka Four Point Kneeling
Start on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
Engage your core while keeping your pelvis neutral, and reach one leg back.
Concentrate on using your buttocks to raise the leg up and out behind you, bring it back to starting position, and complete the same action with your other leg.
Aim for 10-20 reps each side, completing 3 sets per side.
See this video for details on how to do a four-point kneel:
Standing Hamstring Curls
Stand up straight while holding onto a support surface such as a desk, dresser, chair, or other stable object.
Slowly bring your heel as close to your buttocks as you can, hold the position for a count of three, then bring your foot back down. Repeat with your other foot.
Try to complete 10-15 reps on each side for 3 total sets.
Here’s a video on how to complete a standing hamstring curl:
Lunges
Lunges are a great move that really strengthens your quads and hamstrings, but don’t go too deep at first – especially if you have existing knee issues.
Begin standing up with your feet together, then take a large step forward with one foot.
Lower your body until your rear knee almost touches the ground, being sure to keep both feet pointing forward.
Push back up, take an alternating step, and repeat.
Try to complete 3 sets of 10-15 reps, being sure to work each leg equally. You can go lower in the lunges over time as your mobility allows.
Check out this video on how to perform lunges:
Cycling
Using a bicycle or stationary bike can help considerably to strengthen the muscles around the knees, build the quads and hamstrings, and also increase endurance.
Try to complete 3-5 sessions per week lasting around 20 minutes each.
Balance Training
Using obstacle domes, balance balls, or gliding discs at home are fun and easy ways to increase your balance and strengthen your knees for hiking.
Try one or try them all, and the great part is that you can do them as much as you’d like.
How To Protect Your Knees While Hiking
In addition to preparing and strengthening your knees for hiking, you also need to continue to protect them while on the trail to avoid setbacks and injuries.
Here are a few tried and trusted methods to protect your knees while on the trail.
Wrap Your Knees
Elastic brace wraps or knee compression sleeves are great protection options because they help improve joint and muscle stability while also aiding in muscle recovery.
Wear Properly Fitting Hiking Boots
Using poor-fitting footwear will wreak havoc on your hips and knees, so it’s critically important that your hiking boots fit well and offer good support and traction on the trail.
Read through our guide on how hiking boots should fit to make sure your pair best supporting you.
Use Trekking Poles
Using trekking poles while hiking improves your balance and provides extra support to your knees by transferring the load of your weight to the poles.
Distributing the weight evenly across your body will help protect your knees from impact while hiking downhill.
Give Compression Socks A Try
Compression socks aid in joint stability, muscle stability, and muscle recovery just like knee compression sleeves do.
Take a look at our reviews of the best compression socks for hiking for some great recommendations.
Change Your Pace
Hiking more slowly and changing the way you hike downhill can help your knees out quite a bit.
Try allowing your hips to move more freely from side to side as you hike, and you can even try zig-zagging down the trail to avoid the extra impact that a head-on step will put on your knees.
Wrapping Up How To Strengthen Your Knees For Hiking
We hope you try the above exercises and tips for preparing and strengthening your knees while hiking and that it provides you with some extra relief.
Let us know what worked best for you (along with any recommendations not listed here) in the comments below.