How to Go Up and Down Stairs Without Pain

Is walking up the stairs something that causes you pain? Or maybe you get winded when you get to the very top of the stairs. Or maybe you also have knee pain when you walk down a flight of stairs. The reality is stairs can sometimes be pretty tricky if you have achy knees. So I'm going to show you a few simple movements that you can use to build up the strength and stamina to go up and down the stairs pain-free and with ease. Hey you, Coach Tyler here with WeShape. And let me tell you, I am no stranger to not being able to go up or down stairs without experiencing knee pain. I've had five knee surgeries in my life and that's five different recovery periods where I couldn't use the stairs and had to relearn how to go up and down the stairs again. The good news is though, I've built the strength and control back and you can too. All you have to do is practice the simple movements I'm about to show you. But first, I'm going to do the splits while you hit the like and subscribe buttons. And make sure to also hit that little bell icon so you get notified when we release more videos just like this one. Oh, before we go any further, I should just mention that I'm not your doctor. So make sure you get these things cleared by them first, okay? We're here to help you feel better in your body. But be smart, okay? If you're having trouble walking up the stairs pain-free, then I'm going to show you a movement that's going to help you do it without experiencing pain. But first, let me share with you the three reasons why you might be experiencing pain as you walk up the stairs right now. So first, is that you're putting too much weight on just the ball of your foot. When you walk up the stairs, what you really want is you want to plant your whole foot flat on the step. And when you press into that foot, you're pressing still in about 70% into the heels and 30% into the toes, okay? The next reason you might be experiencing pain is because as you step up, your knee is going in front of your toes. When you do this, you put a lot more pressure on your knee joint rather than your hip joint. So to fix that, we want to bring the knee back behind the toes and really focus on extending the hips to walk up the stairs, not extending the knee to walk up the stairs. Final thing is using those hip muscles like I just mentioned. So now let me teach you the movement that will help you walk up the stairs pain-free. So it's a step up and it's very simple. You're going to press your foot into the ground, like I said, the entire foot. Put at least 70% of the weight on your heels and don't let your knee come forward over your toes. From there, hinge at the hips. Don't let your back round like this as you do. Just bow forward like this. You're going to press into that foot and you're going to extend your hips to get you to that top position, okay? So from a front view, it looks like this. Foot's flat, hinge forward at the hips, weight in the heel, extend the hips, and then other side repetition, okay? Same thing. Bow forward, press into the heel, extend the hips, other side. So you're actually practicing the movement of walking up the stairs because when you move better in real life, you will feel better in your body again. Now, if this is still too difficult for you, feel free to use a handrail. But the big thing here is don't rely so much on the handrail that your form gets bad. You want to practice good movement. That good movement, again, foot planted flat, lean forward from the hips, press into the heel, and extend the hips as you come to the next position. So as you walk up a flight of stairs, either at your house, maybe you have a couple steps, you can practice this movement every single day. Every single time you walk up the stairs, give yourself at least a few steps where you're really thinking about pressing into the heel, keeping your knee behind your toes, bowing from the hips, and extending with the glutes, those strong muscles back here. And when you do, walking up the stairs is not only going to be more pain-free, but it's going to be a lot easier because you're using all the muscles of your lower body rather than just the ones on the front side of your leg. Hey, really quick, if you found the tips for going downstairs useful, I think you would like what we have over at WeShape. It's an entire workout program built around your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. You can start off with really simple movements that can be done sitting or even lying down in bed. And over time, work up to harder and harder variations to help you build strength, flexibility, and control. Plus, you can try it for free for two full weeks when you click the link below or at the end of the video. If you're having trouble going down the stairs, maybe you experience knee pain or you feel like you're just really unstable, then I'm going to show you the way to do it with good form using good movement, okay? So the reason why people experience pain as they're going down the stairs is because what they do is they put the weight on the front of their foot again, they bring their knee over their toes, they go to step down, and they just crumple like that. Right? And so what you're asking your body to do is you're asking your body to support your entire body weight using your knee and your quad muscle. And it's likely that those muscles are not strong and stable enough to do that. So instead, what we want to do is we want to shift the weight backwards and focus on distributing the strength through your hip rather than your knee. So what you're going to do to start out with is imagine I'm on the top of this step. Instead of stepping forward like this and bringing your knee over your toe, which is causing that pain in the first place, you're going to put your foot out and you're going to hinge through the hips. You're going to bow forward from the hip like this until you get to a nice depth, and then you're going to put that foot down slow and controlled. So I'm just doing this from a side angle. You can do the same thing from a front angle. So what you're going to do is this. Instead of thinking about bringing your body forward, bring your hips back as you bring that foot down and step down like this. Now, at first, that might be too much range of motion for you. So you can practice this while using the handrail and just using it for support. The whole goal is not to ever feel your muscles loosen up like that and fall, right? We want to be able to plant the toe, plant the heel slow and controlled while feeling these muscles and these muscles working at the same time, and then switch and slowly hinge to the hips and go to the other side. The more you find yourself hinging backwards through the hips rather than leaning forward to the knees, the less pressure you'll put on your knees and the better this will feel for you. Now, another way to practice this, which is really, really good for the knees, is to walk up the stairs backwards. So just like we did before, I'm going to be stepping up backwards like this, and instead of me immediately trying to push my toe to the ground, I want to shift my weight back onto my heel until you see my knee goes back behind my toe like this, and then I'm going to press into the heel to come up to the start position. So, like this. I'm going to lift that foot up, foot goes flat like that. I'm going to shift my weight back until my knee is behind my toe. If I need to, I can use that rail for support, and I'm going to come up and practice going up the stairs backwards like this. Now, this one's a little bit harder, but if you go slow and controlled, you're going to activate all the right muscles, you're going to practice good movement, and eventually, when you go down the stairs, you're going to be able to do it pain-free again, and it's going to feel really good that you did these exercises and that you feel amazing in your body. Okay, I hope you now have the tools that you need to help you work on regaining the ability to go up and down the stairs pain-free again. Because that's what it's all about, right? Feeling better in your body. And when you learn to move better, like we teach at WeShape, you'll feel better too. If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to let us know if you have any questions in the comments. And please do someone a favor who's also having trouble with the stairs and experiencing knee pain and share this video with them too. We'd love to help them out. Also, if you really want to strengthen your legs to make going up and down the stairs even easier, then I highly recommend you check out this video right here. In this video, I'm going to go over how to do lunges with perfect form. They're one of the best movements for strengthening all the muscles of your legs and can be really helpful if you want to feel better faster. I'll see you over there.