First proper hill walk eight months after my hip. How far did you build up, and is downhill meant to feel this much worse than up?

#1moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 19 posts)October 23, 2026, 7:33 pm

My sister (the anterior approach one, who was pottering restriction free while I sat on my throne) has booked us a walking week in the spring. Proper hills. She's thrilled. I'm eight months on from the posterior job and I'm a bit less thrilled.

I've been doing the dog walks, forty minutes, some slopes, no problem. Did my first proper hill on Sunday, about two hours, and going UP was grand. Coming DOWN my hip and the front of my thigh ached like I'd been kicked, and the next day I was walking like a cowboy. Is downhill just worse for everyone? How did you build up to a full day?

#2colin_walks(Joined Aug 2026 · 4 posts)October 23, 2026, 9:02 pm

I'm only five weeks out so I'm the wrong person to say how it ends, but I was a hill walker for thirty years before my hip went, and downhill is worse for everyone, new hip or not. Going down, your thigh muscles are working as brakes the whole way, and the hip takes more of a jolt with each step. My knees used to complain more on the descent than anything else did.

Poles. Two of them. They take a lot of the load off on the way down. It's half the reason I'm hopeful about getting back up there myself.

#3pbike60(Joined Feb 2025 · 36 posts)October 24, 2026, 9:14 am

Same pattern here. Up was fine at six months, down took till about ten to stop aching. I added ten or fifteen minutes a week, never more, and did a shorter walk the day after a long one rather than a rest day. Shorter steps going down helped too.

#4gardeninggwen(Joined Jan 2025 · 29 posts)October 25, 2026, 4:40 pm

The cowboy walk the day after means you went too far for where you are now, not that you shouldn't go. That's what my physio said when I overdid the allotment last spring. Back off a bit, then build again. You've got till spring.

And please do the side lying exercises. You know which ones I mean. I wish I'd kept doing mine.

#5moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 19 posts)November 1, 2026, 6:20 pm

Report from week one of the plan. Bought poles, colin is right, they are a revelation going down. Did an hour and a quarter with a gentle descent on Saturday with short steps and the poles taking the weight, and the next day was a normal day. No cowboy.

Sister and I have agreed a plan of adding fifteen minutes every couple of weeks. And I've asked my physio for a check before we go so she can tell me whether the hip is ready for a full day or whether I'm doing the half days and meeting her at the pub.