FAVA: Walking Backwards

In mid-to-late December 2024, I started walking backwards in a swimming pool.

Three to five times a week you can still find me walking in the slow lanes in the learner’s pool, where even the deep end is shallow enough for an adult to stand, and especially in the leftmost, extra-wide lane used for water exercises.

When I started, I would see an occasional athlete walking in the water while doing hydrotherapy to get back on their feet.

I never saw anyone else walking backwards. Today, there are many of us.

It’s not that I’m laying claim to the phenomenon -- reverse water walking in a pool is a known exercise -- but I think I may have accidentally started a trend at the university pools.

You see, recreational swimming may be an individual sport, but anyone who frequents a pool knows there’s a community that comes with it. The chitchat in the changing rooms, poolside, and between lanes.

So, when I first started walking backwards, the regulars in the lanes beside me would check in, asking what I was doing and why I was doing it. I was happy to explain the research I had found and the benefits of walking in water.

At first, I thought I was walking in water to fix some pulled muscles. About two weeks prior to my first aqua walking session, excruciating pains presented themselves -- mainly in my left leg, but there were right leg issues as well.

I had no idea why my legs were suddenly so painful.

While I have had leg pains for as long as I can remember, this was another level of pain.

Suddenly, I could barely walk. Different parts of my leg hurt in different ways. They still do.

Today I often walk with hiking poles -- not because I can’t walk without them but because I never know when my left thigh will freeze up. Like the Tin Man. I feel like a concrete block is deep in my hamstrings. And it turns out my right leg was taking the brunt of my weight when walking and thus hurt as well. It no longer hurts.

I get simultaneous pains throughout my left leg. In my mid-thigh, back of thigh, upper thigh, knee, calf, hip, groin. Since December 2024, the pain has been daily, constant. But it is not one pain. It moves. It can be deep in my thigh and then hop to my calf. Each pain more excruciating than the last.

While medical professionals were trying to figure it out or explain it away -- I received numerous diagnoses, the last one in June 2026 -- I needed to find something that could alleviate the agony.

When I first started taking steps in the water, every step hurt like hell.

I could barely walk for 10 minutes.

I continued walking in the pool with each new diagnosis. From being told I had pulled muscles (it was not that), to a diagnosis of intramuscular venous malformations (yes, there’s that, but not just that) to FAVA (bingo).

One and a half years later, I have a whole water regimen. I walk forwards, sideways, and backwards. I tread, do water weights, and swim, too.

But the main part of my pool routine is walking backwards. I’ve become a bit of a fanatic about retro walking. I recommend it to everyone. To people with FAVA. To people with sore veins, sore muscles, sore anything.

Nowadays, the regulars at the pool give me the head nod when they see me. Some check in to see how my legs are feeling. A growing number have added walking to their routines as well. And this entertains me to no end.

Walking in the water does not cancel out my leg pain. It alleviates the pain for a few hours or sometimes even a whole day. And anyone living with FAVA will tell you just how awesome that is.