The cartilage in your knees is a living tissue. Like muscle, it responds and adapts to stimulus. If descending stairs gives you knee pain that isn't from some past injury being aggravated, then train them.
You get people who go skiing or running for the first time in a while and they complain "Oh, my knees hurt, I'm too old for this". Nope. You're just out of condition. Use it or lose it.
Nice theory, now go ahead and do it for some time (meaning few decades) and then lets talk. Or talk to knee surgeons.
Or no, just listen to few folks who have something to sell like books or training regimens or guiding, or simply won genetic lottery in that very specific part of their bodies, since such advice definitely applies to everybody, at any age, at any situation.
Now that I'm in my 50s my tendons have lost a great deal of elasticity, maintaining muscle mass is starting to feel like a losing battle, but my knee joints are great, and that's in spite of a lifetime spent ignoring all popular advice on how not to wreck them.
Of course, You don't have to look far to see pro-athletes or ex-pro athletes: runners, tennis players, basketball players and gymnasts who have been going hard on their knees for decades and are still physically impressive relative to any of us mortals.
If you've torn or damaged your meniscus at some point you are statistically prone to osteoarthritis later in life but otherwise you should be fine.
The cartilage in your knees is a living tissue. Like muscle, it responds and adapts to stimulus. If descending stairs gives you knee pain that isn't from some past injury being aggravated, then train them.
You get people who go skiing or running for the first time in a while and they complain "Oh, my knees hurt, I'm too old for this". Nope. You're just out of condition. Use it or lose it.
Nice theory, now go ahead and do it for some time (meaning few decades) and then lets talk. Or talk to knee surgeons.
Or no, just listen to few folks who have something to sell like books or training regimens or guiding, or simply won genetic lottery in that very specific part of their bodies, since such advice definitely applies to everybody, at any age, at any situation.
Now that I'm in my 50s my tendons have lost a great deal of elasticity, maintaining muscle mass is starting to feel like a losing battle, but my knee joints are great, and that's in spite of a lifetime spent ignoring all popular advice on how not to wreck them.
Of course, You don't have to look far to see pro-athletes or ex-pro athletes: runners, tennis players, basketball players and gymnasts who have been going hard on their knees for decades and are still physically impressive relative to any of us mortals.
If you've torn or damaged your meniscus at some point you are statistically prone to osteoarthritis later in life but otherwise you should be fine.
https://msklab.med.ubc.ca/how-to-save-your-knees-without-giv...
Stairs? Nope.
Mountains? Sometimes, if it's a long hike and i don't pay attention.