I love hiking and wanted to get back to it after a knee replacement. A physical Therapit suggesed I use treckking poles to help with thie stage of recovery and he was absolutely right. These poles help me distribute my weight going up and reduce the stress onmy knees when I walk downhill. They are light but sturd and adjust very easilly There are markes with measurments on th elower sections which helps speed up the sdjustments to equalie pole length. If you press on them you can see the spring compress, it is a kind of shoc absorber I guess. In any case, these poles really imprved my hiking experience.