The Masai shoes look a lot more normal, but you’re talking to someone who wore Earth Shoes back in the day! As well as Birkenstocks when no one knew what they were, and in high school and college I wore dirty bucks, long after big pink soles were cool…..all for comfort.

Which is why my wife is so puzzled that I am caviling at the idea of the zcoils….but there ARE limits! I’m having a look at the Masai – they’re sold locally.

I used to have some knee pains that were caused by not using the muscles around the knee joint. Whenever I put more than normal weight on it such as deep knee bends, it would cringe due to the fact that the muscle tissue wasn’t there to support that kind of motion with that kind of weight.

The problem went away once I started Hindu squats, which started conditioning the muscles around the knee so that whatever weight was put on the knee, went into the muscles rather than all into the knee cap. All into the knee cap causes discomfort and wearing down of the cartilage there, as far as I know.

The normal equation is that while people may gain weight, they don’t gain stronger knees. It is sort of an engineering problem. The weight on top increases, but the supports stay the same.

Depending upon how a person walks, they might be able to take some of the weight off the knee when they are walking. If the knee is being rotated forward while the body has its weight on that foot, then essentially you are rotating some or most of your body weight through your knee joints. I suppose it adds up eventually.

When I started to walk regularly, I usually was carrying a 10 or 20 pound case. I noticed that the leg muscle along my shin bone started to ache after a few days. I believe it was due to the fact that oftentimes I would step and put most of my weight on the front part of my foot while walking, running, or speed walking. This used the front muscles in the leg to move my body weight mostly, rather than using the knee or thighs. Normal walking never required those muscles to be used.

I’ve heard about people needing knee surgery, but I’ve never heard about how you can improve the muscles around your knee if it already has problems. Just by definition, you shouldn’t do anything, including exercise, that involves any injured body part. Pain, in this sense, is not the name or the goal of the game.