Knee Pain & Foot Ascenders

opposablethumb

opposablethumb

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Mid-Atlantic
Greetings buzzards.

Up until recently, I primarily climbed using secured footlock, or SRT foot locking with a rope wrench.

I'm finally gathering the gear for a better, more up-to-date ascent system, i.e. a simple frog.

However, I'm having trouble with my right knee, on the same leg that I have my foot ascender. It is odd to me that this pain is coming now, after a few years of footlocking without any knee trouble.

I am wondering if anyone else has this trouble, and if it has to do with a certain alignment of the ascender on your foot, etc??

I am using a CMI foot ascender, by the way.

Thanks for any advice.
 
I also use a CMI foot ascender and have noticed at times some pain that I asociate with it's use. I've attributed it to the fact that I no longer climb on a regular basis and the muscles and tendons are stressed when used that way. I articularly notice it when I am in a difficult ascent situation. The discomfort I experience is centered on the outside of my ankle and extends up the outside of my lower leg.
 
Can you post a pic of your foot with the ascender on it while on a rope and under a load. Just as you start to straighten your knee would be a good time to take the pic.

It might be a coincidence. Too many climbers FL with their knees spread out to the side like wings. If this form is used for too long joint injury is bound to happen. Keeping knees forward is better technique.
 
Ive had it in the past with a Pantin,not so much with a frog walker because the weight is distributed to both legs.But if I try to accend a static line with just a foot ascender then it torks my knee.
 
I have developed the same problem. I bought a pantin thinking it would do my knees a favor over footlocking. Over the past week my right knee has really started to bother me. I always stack my left foot over my right foot using both to climb just like I would when footlocking the rope. I'm not sure how much this helps. I'm curious about other people's experiences.
 
I have had this too, but I've tried pretending like I'm pedaling a bike (small motions and straight kneed), and it seems to really help. the smaller but faster reps are using the most power from your legs, and you can usually go longer with less fatigue. I am still up for trying something else but for me this works well.
 
cambmx is right, small steps with the least amount of bend in you knee. I had to force myself not to take large steps. The pedaling motion in reverse can help with keeping the line in your foot ascender if that is ever a problem.
 
[ QUOTE ]
cambmx is right, small steps with the least amount of bend in you knee. I had to force myself not to take large steps. The pedaling motion in reverse can help with keeping the line in your foot ascender if that is ever a problem.

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I agree totally with the smaller steps... I notcie I have a problem when I am using just my right leg. I tend to take larger (2x) steps because my body is not as upright. My frog walking system basically has me almost completely upright and Im taking 1 foot steps maybe sharing the ascent with both legs. The other thing I do is switch to a left foot acsender every now and again. that forces me to use the other leg when on short bursts (its a bit akward but do able). Anything over 15 or 20 ft I set up the frog walker again.
 
Knee trouble. Never use spikes. Here's a quote from Dr. Steadman Vail, Co, when I told him about using spikes: "I can't think of anything worse you could do to your knees" If you are pumping with just one leg, put your opposite foot over the foot with the ascender and pump with both legs. Small bits with faster turnover is much better.
 
Agreed ! Spikes are probably the worst thing for your knees, it's the times when I have spikes on that my knee hurts. The most.

The other thing I've experienced similar to previous posts is the smaller steps will help 👍also in conjunction with pushing your weight through your heel, concentrating on keeping your knee behind your foot, and like Tom said keeping our knee straight with your foot pointed forward.
 
I bought a left foot pantin after having the right one for a while. I felt like my legs were getting uneven workouts. Just switch it up. Tree to tree, day to day.
 
I've noticed it for sure. Not hammering my body into position has helped. I now take smaller steps and I try to pull with my arms a LITTLE. The whole idea IMO is to put the workload into the major muscle groups but I use my arms for some of the workload of ascent. I go a little slower too. I'm just not in a panic stricken hurry any more. My work will get done...
 
I've had a problem with the Pantin, but it has to do with the Achilles tendon. I was using it climbing Ddrt, which entailed a lot of foot pumping on long ascents. The back strap on the Pantin would rise up and dig in on the back of my ankle, right at the seam between the cuff and the hard leather. It created a small lump on the AT, and I had to get a different pair of boots. Since then, I put a connecting strap between the back strap and the one that goes under the foot, and that seems to work well, keeping it off that irritated tendon.
 
Once I started climbing srt my right knee started having slight pain. Ascending with a foot ascender puts twice the force on your knee, ankle, hip as drt. I primarily use my right foot for short ascents so I'm figuring out how to ease the force and or switch it up
 
Spent 40 years in spurring up trees and never had a single knee problem. As soon as I started using a rope walking system my knees got extremely pissed off. I shortened up my stride until my body could get used to doing something it had never done before. Been pain free since.
 
Welcome to TreeBuzz posting cBiscuit. When I search out topics and threads on TreeBuzz I think of a lot of the info as nearly timeless as well as nearly invaluable. But, sometimes the last post is not all that recent. I see the post before yours is dated April, 2014 so that person may have moved on in different ways.

I agree with something Rico seems to be pointing to, we can change our style a little to work with joints etc and all of a sudden everything works fine.
 
I "grew up" caving using a rope walker system with a chest ascender 40 years ago, so that's what I started with in trees. I have had no problem with my knees. One foot ascender, one knee ascender, and a chest harness to tend my rope wrench or HH2. Keep yourself as vertical as you can and take small steps.

Climbing on spurs was painful for my knees at first. Then I learned (recently) to not jab the spurs into the tree. Just step on them and let the spurs do the work. Small steps and problem solved.
 
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