Last weekend I got sucked into climbing halfway up the Peak to play soccer with my son and his friend. I didn't realize the ascent would be so lengthy or so steep and it killed my knees. I was out of action for a week. It was just too painful to lie down or get up from floor exercises, never mind walking downhill to the gym.

I went to physio yesterday and got another double session. It was mostly massage on my lower back and right buttock to free up the spasm there. While that was effective, more interesting was our investigation and discussion of what makes my right hip click. It turns out that it's my "thick but weak" gluteus medius which is the source. It attaches to the iliac crest at the top and the (strangely named) greater trochanter at the bottom.

The first part of the massage freed up the clicking at the top of the buttock but then I ended up with two clicks (depending on the angle my leg was at) lower down! There just wasn't enough time for the physio to massage everything into oblivion but it turns out that there are some pretty good low-impact exercises I can try to help alleviate the problem. See eg:

http://www.bodyresults.com/E2gluteusMedius.asp
http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/gluteus-medius.htm
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050415/1545.html

The main thing is to "stretch, strengthen and massage", to break down the "thick" connective tissue in the muscle.

The physio also taped my knees but did it in a hurry and I felt no benefit and the tapes fell off after 12 minutes of cross-trainer in the gym afterwards. So now I have just shaven, painful, crunchy knees. Still, I learned 3 things:

(1) The gluteus medius is the one to work on.

(2) Don't walk up and down too many steps, as my knees and back work against each other still.

(3) Some knees tapers are better than others.