(Blood sugar) Just knee pain, not much for your health? Blood sugar and muscle levels improve during descent. Reporter Lee Seul-bi's story.

'Hasan' has a bad reputation as an exercise that is bad for the 'knees'.

It's not a false accusation. When descending, a load of three to five times your body weight is placed on your knees.

 

Hiking is not recommended for people who are obese or have pain in their knees or back.

 

However, due to the widespread stigma surrounding descents, the health benefits of descents are largely unknown. Descents are also beneficial for health, including blood sugar control and muscle mass gains. Those without knee or back pain don't need to fear descents from hiking.

Climbing a mountain improves your vascular health. Coming down also improves your vascular health and regulates your blood sugar. An Austrian research team divided 40 adults who did not normally exercise into two groups. For two months, one group walked up a mountain three to five times a week and then took a gondola down. The other group took the gondola up and then walked down. As a result, both groups showed a 10% improvement in LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol that builds up in blood vessels and raises blood pressure. In addition, the group that exercised down the mountain showed improvement in insulin resistance and lower blood sugar levels.

The reason there are additional health benefits when descending is because it puts a different stimulus on your muscles than when climbing.

Climbing primarily involves concentric contractions, shortening the entire muscle mass. A prime example of this type of exercise is when you hold a dumbbell and bend your arm, causing the muscles in your upper arm to shorten and protrude.

 

While descending, the overall muscle length primarily increases, but some muscle fibers contract alternately, an eccentric contraction. For example, if you hold a dumbbell and bend your arm, then straighten it with force, the muscle lengthens as your arm straightens, protruding in a convex position. This is an eccentric contraction. Muscles use glucose left over from the body's organs and tissues as an energy source, and various studies have shown that eccentric contraction exercises are more effective for building muscle strength and size.

 

For people with mild osteoporosis or arthritis, hiking on a gentle slope can help alleviate symptoms. As muscle strength increases, joints and bones become more stable, and the muscles absorb the shock to the joints. Furthermore, when bones are subjected to physical stress, osteoblasts, the cells that create bone, become more active.

 

To climb safely, you should start on a gentle, low mountain and gradually increase in elevation.

 

When climbing a mountain, keep the soles of your shoes pressed firmly against the ground and walk with shorter strides to evenly distribute the weight of your body across your feet and reduce energy consumption. When descending, it's safer to hit the ground with your heels first, preventing the weight from directly transferring to your knee joints.

 

Bending your knees more deeply than usual can further reduce joint strain. When the slope is steep, it's better to descend at an angle rather than straight down. Anyone with bad or concerned joints should use hiking poles. Professor Kim Tae-hoon of the Department of Orthopedics at Konkuk University said in a past interview with Health Chosun, “The stick reduces the load caused by body weight by about 30%, which reduces the burden on the knees,” and “If you hold the stick and move it, you can also exercise your shoulders at the same time.”

 

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I went hiking today for the first time in a long time.

My knees are starting to hurt a little. It's a problem from my regular exercise.

Now let's start from the nearby mountain

 

You need to gradually increase your exercise.

 

Is that a hiking stick?

I don't really hike, but haha ​​I carry it with me

It's very helpful