Preventing Common Hiking Injuries

hey all Dixie here today I want to talk to you about common injuries on the trail the way I came up with this video is I really just wanted to create this montage of gnarly injuries and you know get them from a bunch of different hikers that way y'all can see that backpacking isn't always as glamorous as you know people make it look when they're putting videos on YouTube and posting you know things on social media then I decided okay so you know there are weird people who like to see other people injured and hurt so you know maybe those people would get a kick out of it too but and I thought it would really be helpful if I cover you know why do these injuries take place and some ways to prevent them so I'm gonna go over that today and then this coming weekend I'll go ahead and put out that montage video from you know all the different hikers that contributed to it and so y'all stay tuned for that I do want to say that this is not medical advice so you know I'm just telling you things that have worked for me and people around me I am NOT a doctor and obviously if you have a broken femur you need to go to the hospital with that said most injuries that are preventable that happened on trail can be prevented with proper footwear taking it easy you know starting out slow listening to your body staying hydrated and just paying attention and being aware of your surroundings based on what I've seen on trail the most common type of injury that you are likely to deal with is a foot injury I feel like most of these can be prevented by wearing you know the proper size Footwear and also the proper footwear so a lot of people think that you need like these big heavy you know tough boots and when you're on a well-established trail like the 80 the PCT you know other trails that might be local to you just something that's well-maintained you don't really need big heavy boots a lot of people think that they need them for ankle support I actually found out for me it was the opposite so boots did not work well for me I thought I needed the ankle support but the high ankle of the boot actually drummed against my Achilles tendon and ended up causing swelling and tendinitis in my Achilles so sometimes the best thing that you can do for your foot is to have you know a lightweight shoe on it and that's where trail runners come in so I only recommend trail runners I would say about 95% of people I've seen on trail wear trail runners that doesn't mean it's gonna work for everybody you just want to say that you might not need as much ankle support as you think you do now you want to make sure that whatever sure you get fits properly and a lot of people you know think that it's gonna be their normal size shoe a lot of times it's a half the size or a whole size bigger while you're hiking and just beating your feet up every day your feet are gonna swell and they're going to expand and you know might even flatten out a little bit so you know my feet definitely grew from the beginning of the 18th to the end of it and then even from there while I was on the PCT I do two different tests to make sure that my shoes are properly sized because sometimes when you go between brands and things like that you know the sizes don't all line up perfectly so I do the thumb test and the tapping toe test the thumb test is just I make sure that from my big toe to the top of the shoe I've got at least a thumb width of room I mean you don't want too much but about a thumb width is usually you know for me the right amount and then the toe tapping test all you're doing is basically tying up your shoe you know getting it how you would wear it if you're hiking and then tapping your toe on the ground and making sure that when you do that your toe is not jamming up against the front of the shoe and the reason that you want to do that is because if you're walking downhill and your foot is constantly drumming on the front of your shoe you might get blisters you know issues with your toenails so you just want to make sure that those shoes fit properly and you're not just hammering your foot up against the front and maybe you have enough space between your toes and the shoe but it's still drumming like on the side so you might need a wider toe box ultras are pretty good for that on the PCT I went from Solomon's to ultras likely will continue with ultras moving forward because the toe box is just so roomy and you know it helps prevent my toes from rubbing together and then you know gives them room to spread out and I don't have my nails hitting the front of my shoe even like on the sides it's always a good idea to you know test your shoes out before you get out there on trail but I mean there have been times on trail where I'm at an outfitter and the only types of shoes they have are ones that I've not used before so sometimes you just have to make do with what you have some people just go at the factory insole some people choose to wear super feet or sole insoles me personally I wear dr. Scholl's for plantar fasciitis it's not a bad idea to go get an insole made specifically for your foot from a podiatrist especially if you do have some kind of foot issues but you know that can't be a little pricey so just letting you know that if your step isn't working for you there are things that you can tweak within your shoe you know to make it work for you now to be more specific the most common type of foot injury I would say is blisters I don't know a whole lot of three hikers that have never had a blister I had one on the 18 and I had you know not too many on the PCT but definitely more than one I never used to get blisters on day hikes so you know even if you're day hiking you're not getting blisters on a thru-hike your feet are going through a whole lot more so you might end up with blisters if you do find yourself with blisters then try to figure out you know what's causing it is it debris being thrown up in your shoe if so then maybe you need gaiters which just go around your ankle and over the top of your shoe to keep you know sticks and pebbles and things like that from getting into your shoe if it's friction for example your two toes rubbing together you can get toe socks made by in gingy they make liners and then actual socks so that way it's material rubbing on material rather than your toe on your toe and say it's friction on the bottom of your heel for example they do make sock liners which kind of does the same thing it's it's just like a thin sock on the inside of your sock so it lines the sock and it allows the material of the sock liner to rub with the material of your sock and then you know the bottom of your shoe and it just helps reduce that friction that's actually causing irritation to your skin the best thing to do too prevent blisters is to stop them as you feel them forming so if you feel yourself getting a hot spot sit down and take care of it immediately whatever you can do to clean it and then bandage it I've used leuco tape duct tape some people carry moleskin and use that basically anything you can do to reduce the friction on that skin that's getting irritated and then once you get to town you can figure out a more permanent solution like the socks or liners or something like that so you've already got a blister now you're wondering do I pop it or do I leave it well it really depends case-by-case that's how I judge it anyway sometimes I pop them sometimes if I don't pop them I see them expanding and getting bigger but a nurse that I hiked with for awhile said that you know if you're gonna pop them then at least wait 24 hours or so and give that skin underneath the blister time to kind of start forming and getting a little bit you know stronger when I've popped him I just always heat up a safety pin with a lighter and put some hand sanitizer on it not saying that's a perfect solution but desperate times calls for desperate measures and that's what I have on trail some folks will even use a needle because they carry needle for repairs anyway and some thread and it will rub antibiotic ointment neosporin or whatever if you have it on the thread and you know thread it through the blister and then cut off you know leave a little bit of the thread hanging out obviously don't just cut it off flush with your skin but anyway and that helps to draw the fluid out of the blister and the thread kind of keeps the skin from closing up and leaving some of the fluid in there and it helps to like wick the fluid out of the blister and I guess you're also getting antibiotic ointment in there as you thread it through I've never used that method some people say it works but you know it's an option and then some people just go ahead and slice the blister way open and select some hand sanitizer in there anyway it's kind of a personal preference on exactly what to do with blisters and you'll figure out what works for you but if you notice your blisters getting worse and seeming like they might be infected go ahead and go to the doctor and get that taking care of because if you don't take care of your feet it's gonna be really hard to complete a third reich next foot injury I want to cover is the toenails that decide they don't want to be a part of your thru-hike it's not uncommon for backpackers to lose toenails I ended up losing two toenails at the beginning of the PCT because even though I thought my shoes were big enough I started with the same size that I ended with on the 18 I didn't do a good job of checking to make sure I had enough room and that my toes were not drumming in the front of my shoe and I ended up with blisters under my front 2 toenails and then I popped the blisters but I guess not enough time because my toenails turned black and then they finally fell off some people you know hit their toe on a rock so hard that it injures their toenail and makes it pop off I mean it definitely happens I guess other than being careful and watching where you're going and not kicking a rock you know you can just like I said make sure your shoes are properly sized and if you do notice your toenails starting to come off you know figure out why that's happening and change it up one thing that could cause your toenails to come off even if your shoes are properly sized is if you let them grow too long so if you don't keep them trimmed up then chances are you know if they're a little bit longer than maybe you would normally have them they could be hitting the front of your shoe even though you would have enough space if you keep them trimmed I carry toenail clippers with me for most of the way but if you're not going to you can get a pair for 99 cents every now and then in a trail town and just make sure you keep you know keep those talons groomed a little bit so they don't pop off while you're walking as far as what to do if your toenails do come off just I would say keep their you clean you know make sure that there's nothing there getting infected there was nothing that was like an open wound on my toenails it's just that they started slowly like detaching from the skin and I just started trimming them back you know as they would detach and then finally they stopped to a point and they have now pretty much grown back the next bit in jury I want to talk about is trench foot so trench foot happens when your feet have been wet a lot and cold a lot they're not getting a chance to air out and that skin is basically just rotting it can it's a foot fungus and just you know a lot of funky things so the best way to prevent this is if you're gonna stop for a break you know whether it's a snack break lunch break at the end of the day take your socks off take your shoes off and let your feet air out even if you're not walking through water sources like in the Sierra Nevada for example all day long your feet can get trench foot just from having sweaty socks stay on them all day so again just peel those socks off let them lay in the Sun while you're taking a break and kind of air out and trench foot is the main reason I carry camp shoes because when I get to camp in the evening I like to be able to put on my sandals and just let my feet air out the rest of the evening the last foot related injury I'd like to cover is plantar fasciitis I was plagued with this on the Appalachian Trail and it's basically just the inflammation of the plantar fascia which is that tendon it's actually I guess more of like a band that runs in the bottom of your foot so if you pull your toes back and you feel that that gets tight that's your planner fashioned plantar fasciitis is common in folks that run or people that are on their feet a lot for work basically I think mine was caused because the support in my shoe had gone out and so my arches were hyperextending while I was walking so if you catch yourself with plantar fasciitis on the trail I have a whole video dedicated to that already on the channel but if you catch yourself with plantar fasciitis on the trail the things that really saved me was making sure that I swapped my shoes every 500 miles I got insoles for plantar fasciitis I soaked my feet in coal and water sources as much as I could while I was in town I iced them and rolled them on frozen water bottles and I started stretching as much as I could any calf stretches are good because your calf is connected more or less to like your Achilles tendon which is connected to the planar fashion you know it all kind of plays in together so if you're stretching your calf muscles then you know you're gonna help stretch that planar fashion plantar fasciitis is a very painful thing and it's definitely something you want to nip in the bud you don't want to let it get too bad while you're on a thru-hike so if you start feeling you know pains that you're not used to feeling in your feet I mean it's common for your feet to hurt but you'll know when it's like okay something's wrong hurting or when it's normal hurting I would definitely pay attention and listen to your feet if you think that you get like a lightning sensation on the bottom of your foot that's what it felt like for me or for some people it's more painful in the heel but just be aware that plantar fasciitis exists and you know it's something to look out for and if you want to prevent it probably one of the best ways is stretching so before I move on to the next type of injury I just want to follow up and say that Aaron your feet out is always good washing them rubbing them keeping your toenails trimmed when you're taking breaks you know let your feet air out and you can also change out your socks so some people like to change about their socks at lunch and let their you know dirty or sweat filled socks dry out on their pack and this is especially good if you're going through an area that you're walking through a lot of water and just overall take care of your feet because that's what's getting you from point A to point B next thing I want to go over is like twisting swelling or just general overuse of a joint so this happened to me with an ankle I was in the Sierra Nevada and I ended up having to use a compression sleeve for it while I was hiking and then also my knees the first few days of the PCT I really overdid myself and my knees were very very swollen just from basically overuse I couldn't like extend them all the way anymore it felt like the back of my knee was just gonna bust flew it out of it I mean it's kind of gross but that's what it felt like and I was calling them t-rex knees because I had to like walk with them bent and I felt like a little t-rex so if you have noticed that you've you know overused a joint and you've got some swelling or you've twisted something and you've got swelling then you are supposed to do rice right that's what they say rest ice compression and elevation of course if you're in the middle of two towns and you're not really in a good place to necessarily rest unless you've got like a plethora of food and then go for it but once you are able to get to a town maybe it's good to take a zero day or two and rest because sometimes you know when you've just injured something if you keep pushing you're gonna make it worse and you know potentially get yourself off trail more if you take a zero - then it gives it a chance to heal up and then maybe you can walk from there even if it's still you know not 100% so that's the rest as far as the icing goes of course while you're in town it's a great idea to ice something but while you're out on trail you just have to think like okay I don't have ice unless you're in the Sierra Nevada where there's a lot of snow that's great right but if you don't have ice you can use like a cold spring and you know put your ankle or knee or whatever it is in that cold water and just soak it you know at least having a cooler temperature will help it and potentially help the swelling go down compression like I said in the Sierra Nevada when I hurt my ankle once I got to town I ended up getting a compression sleeve and hiked with that for a while until it finally got well enough to not use it and then elevation you can do that anywhere so you can be out you know on the trail and take a break and prop your feet up or knee or whatever it is that's bothering you so the way that you can prevent this is to you know avoid pushing yourself too hard really listen to your body if you're not making the miles that you really wanted to it's okay the miles will come but if you injure yourself right out of the gate then you might ruin your whole chance for a Third Reich so take the time off and just be patient I know this sounds like common sense but while you're walking really try to watch where you're going it's a good idea to try to you know maintain elevation I mean yes you're climbing mountains but from one step to the next you know if there is an area where you could step high up you know onto a rock or something or you might go around the rock and stay more flat then it's a better idea to stay flat it's less exertion on your body and also watch like when you're stepping that you're not stepping on a wet route or you know a rock that's too small to put your whole foot on because they might roll you know it's just using common sense in just a paying attention to your surroundings next we've got cuts and scrapes so I don't carry antibiotic ointment usually I mean if I have some kind of injury that needs it then once I get to town I'll get some and carry it out not saying that's the best idea I mean the best idea is probably to just carry some but you know I try to cut weight wherever I can and I guess for a little while I did carry this little travel-size antibiotic ointment things but once I was out I didn't worry about anymore but basically if you get a cut or scrape you know make sure that you clean it out as well as you can use baby wipes hand sanitizer filtered water you know just whatever you can to clean it out really well if it is you know really serious you can you know use a bandana to apply pressure and then another piece of clothing to tie on top of that you know to help keep the pressure on the spot and then just get to town as fast as you can if a cut is bad enough that you think you're gonna need stitches it's not a bad idea to carry superglue you know you can use superglue to repair certain things and for me I don't know that most of y'all know but I have a fake tooth and if that tooth pops off with a little retainer thing I always do super glue to put it back on there so I have superglue with me all the time it can work for a cut that needs stitches or you know you can use a bandana to put on it and then another piece of clothing to tied tightly on to it to keep pressure on it just when you're out in the wilderness you have to go okay I need you know an ace bandage but I don't have that so I'm gonna use this in its place you just have to learn to improvise with what you have again the best way to avoid cuts and scrapes is to just pay attention to where you're going and especially trees that hang over the trail like fallen trees sometimes when I'm wearing a hat I don't notice them like especially if I'm staring at my feet for so long and I mean you can really like bring your Bell with those in and bust your head so watch that next is poison oak or poison ivy so it is common to see poison oak and poison ivy on trails in the US it is something that you can come in contact with unless you're just extremely allergic then you know it's something it can wait till you get to town where you can get some medication or something to put on it but if you are extremely allergic then you probably already know how to deal with it how to prevent it I did Mike with a guy on the 80 who had extreme reactions if he came into contact with poison oak or poison ivy so he wore knee-high socks that way if he brushed up against it and didn't realize you know he had been exposed it helped protect him from that but again this one can help be prevented with just you know knowing how to identify those plants and making sure that you're not you know taking a nap in them or something and next we have our sprains and stress fractures and breaks and concussions you know things like that that hopefully don't happen to anybody but it is a possibility in those instances you know I would say for the ones where you're capable of exiting the wilderness on your own you know if you have to fashion some kind of splint or you know something to help you get out then just try to improvise the best you can you've got sticks to help make splints some cord you know duct tape I mean there are several things that you can use it doesn't hurt to go ahead and brainstorm some options and think about things that you have in your pack that you could use in that instance if you needed to and then for the more extreme situations hopefully you'll have somebody with you or around you that can you know seek help if they need to it's not a bad idea to carry a GPS locator beacon if you aren't gonna be hiking alone and even if you aren't because you just never know when somebody might actually need a helicopter to come pick them up so I've used like a regular GPS locator beacon where it doesn't communicate with anybody unless I flip the antenna and push the button then they're like spot devices where you can check in every so often let people know you're okay and call for help and then there's like the Garmin in reach which allows you to send text messages and and call for help of course you know they are on different price tiers but if you're gonna be out backpacking and hiking a lot it doesn't hurt to have something like that when you need so I think for the most part of covered most of the common trail injuries of course I didn't cover everything that could possibly happen to you while on the trail but if you have a story about being injured and you know how you overcame it while on trail and you'd like to share that please do so in the comments below because somebody might find themselves in the same situation you know and it just helps to be able to you know share ideas and information and give something that might help somebody in the future but again most of these injuries can be prevented by just taking care of yourself especially your feet listening to your body taking it slow out of the gate because again you're not gonna hike 30 miles you know your first day of a section hike or through hike and I mean maybe you can but I'm just saying don't you know push your body too far and make it to where you can't enjoy yourself the rest of your trip but y'all be on the lookout for that video let's come in this weekend to be honest I was gagging at some of the pictures that were submitted so if y'all get into that kind of thing be on the lookout for that and I might have to watch it you know like through my fingers but then my gosh it's bad but anyway thank y'all so much for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 117,721

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, PCT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, Appalachian, Trail, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, blisters, cuts, plantar fasciitis

Id: Nia1ZY1DdUE

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2017