Originally Posted by
work4bike
When hiking the Appalachian Trail, many new hikers will fret over having to climb steep mountains and in preparation for a hike they will do a lot of cardio to prepare themselves. However, what they failed to realize is that it's the downhills, (despite being easier on the cardio system), that cause the real pain, i.e. injuries. This is because going downhill is much like doing a single-leg squat over and over and over... Many times resulting in injuries to connective tissues.
The take away is that as we age it's the musculoskeletal system that should be given more and more attention.
And that will help your stair climbing as well as your
There you go, everything applies to cycling
I dunno. I've been hiking in the Cascades since I moved down here from Fairbanks at 16. If one is getting sore knees from hiking downhill, well, you're just not hiking enough. I told a little story on here about how my wife and I got much better at hiking downhill after we stopped taking Ibuprofen for knee pain. Haven't had any for decades, and I go in on our 10-day with 65 lbs, my wife with 50, and I'm frigging 80, she's 77. It's just a matter of hardening up.
And yes, backpacking is good for one's cycling and vice versa. If one's connective tissue isn't up to it, one needs to have been going to the gym all winter and doing ass-to-grass squats to near failure. One should be able to squat one's body weight for reps. I lost a lot of fitness because of my heart surgery and I'm back to only about 80% of bodyweight for 10 reps. Sucks.