Can Going Up And Down Stairs Backward Help Knee Pain?

In this video today I’m going to answer the question Can going upstairs and downstairs backward help knee pain. We get this question all the time as a comment on our videos, and I’m so happy to be able to answer it here for you.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh. And I’m a specialist physical therapist at El Paso manual physical therapy. And this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile, while avoiding unnecessary surgery injections and pain medications. Please consider subscribing to our channel so that you don’t miss out on any of the videos we put out every week.

So I am going to show you how to do this properly before we’re done with this video. But before I get there, I just need to give you some pros and cons about why you would do this and just talk about walking up and down the stairs backwards in general. So if you’re looking for the how just fast forward to that part of the video, but if you want to know the why of why you would or would not do this, then stay tuned and listen up.

People often figure this trick out on their own that they if they go up and down the stairs backwards, they don’t feel as much knee pain. But what I’m always concerned about with people doing this regularly is the consequences of it because it does have some detrimental consequences to it.

If this is how you always go up and down stairs. And if you encounter stairs a lot, especially so let’s talk about the pros of going up and down stairs backward, you actually can temporarily reduce how much pressure you’re putting through your knee joints, which is what sets off pain in the first place.

Because when you’re going downstairs or upstairs, you typically will use your quad muscles in the front of your thigh too much, which puts the kneecap up against the end of the thigh bone. And that’s what sets off knee pain for most people. But going downstairs or upstairs backward, can reduce that pressure making it less painful.

This is especially good if your knees are irritated right now, if you have a flared-up knee joint, whether it’s an arthritis problem, kneecap problem, a cartilage problem, or some other related knee issue that it hurts right now like a meniscus problem. And you know that if you go do stairs right now properly, it’s going to hurt you, then doing stairs backwards is a good solution so that you’re not so flared up going up and down stairs. And this is best if you don’t have to encounter stairs regularly.

Like if you’re out in public and you encounter a few steps or even a full flight, then you’re okay to do this as a regular thing, then you’re okay to use stairs backwards as a regular thing whenever you do encounter stairs. But this is with the understanding that you’re not going to be going up and down stairs like this every day. And that leads me to the cons of going up and down stairs backwards.

It’s not a good long-term solution, if you are going up and down stairs backwards all the time. And especially if you encounter stairs every day, like at your home or your apartment, wherever you live. Even if it’s just a few steps, like three or four steps, you’re going to be feeding into a muscle imbalance because what typically sets off a cartilage problem and arthritis problem, a meniscus problem in the knee is having quad muscles in the front of your thighs that are too dominant and strong.

And although you are reducing the pressure in the moments that you’re going up and down stairs, you’re technically using your quads a bit more, which is in the long term, going to aggravate your knee problem. So that being said, let’s head out to the stairs. And let’s show you how to do this right. Right.

Three key important factors for going up and down stairs backwards is one all we use the rail and to make sure that you know where you’re going. So look at where you’re going. And then three is going to be try to use your glutes, it’s not going to be as easy to use your glutes going up and down backwards as it is going the normal way. But try to use it. And as a side note, in case you’re wondering how to go up and down stairs.

Normally, we’ve got a video on how to do that, you can go down in the description below and find that video on how to go up and downstairs normally to reduce your knee pain. So here’s how you would go up the stairs backwards. Get your hands on a rail, you might use both rails if possible, and then look where you’re going. So you make sure you know where each step is you can look down this way at the steps or look back and up that way. And you’re thinking about using those glutes with the leg that you’re going up with.

So in this case, it’s going to be my right leg. I’m going to try to fire this right but muscle, you’re not going to fire it as good as you could have you’re going up but you can do the best that you can. Just like that, I’m turning my knees out, stepping up with the glute, turning my knee out, stepping up with this glute. Just like so. Now to come down, you do the same thing, look down, use the rails and make sure that you’re trying to use the glute muscles.

So you’re going to use a glute muscles on the leg that is staying up. So in this case, I’m moving this leg down I’m going to use my left glute, tighten it up on the way down. Now tighten the right glute on the way down, left glute. And think about turning those knees out as well. So let’s see in real time here be sure to keep your knees out, that will give you the best chance to use your glute muscle.

Hey, go rewind that if you need to see it again, some people will need to rewatch and re watch it and pay close attention to using your glutes he might even play it in slow motion, he go down to the little cog wheel on your video player here, you can adjust the speed of this video to make sure that you can catch it at the speed that you need. So you can do the muscle activation just right for your glutes.

Now, let me give you my expert opinion on whether or not you should be using stairs backwards for your knee problem. I really think you should only be using stairs backwards in two situations. One is if your knees are just really flared up and you find that it feels better to go up and down backwards. In fact, you might find that it only feels better to go down the stairs backwards or up the stairs backwards, not both will always work for you.

And then the other situation is if you hardly ever encounter stairs if you don’t have any stairs at home, you don’t have any stairs at your apartment or your workplace or places that you’re frequent like the store places that you go on a regular basis, then it’s okay if you go up and down the stairs backwards here and there if that’s how you find that you can cope with those steps.

But to contrast that if you have stairs at home like you live in a two-story house or you live in an apartment or a place where you have to go up and down flights of stairs all the time or even just a few steps to get into your living space. Then you should learn how to go up and down stairs normally.

Again go check out that video in the description below to make sure that you know exactly what to do if you’re flirt up right now that it’s okay to go backwards or down backwards. Whatever works best for you. But long term you need to figure out how to use your glutes properly going up the stairs normally and going down the stairs normally.

I hope this video was helpful for you please give us a thumbs up if it was and share this with somebody who you’ve seen going up and down the stairs backwards so they can know the best information possible for their knee. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see in the next video friend’s. Bye