Why Mark Wahlberg Won't Have Surgery After Tearing His Meniscus While Filming Arthur the King (Exclusive)

Mark Wahlberg would like to avoid going under the knife if he doesn’t have to.

In the new issue of PEOPLE, the Arthur the King actor, who tore his meniscus on the first day of filming the movie and continued to work while injured, says he doesn’t want to have an operation. 

“I prefer to try to do corrective exercises versus surgery. It's not my thing,” he says.

The meniscus is a piece of cartilage in the knee that acts as a shock absorber. According to the Mayo Clinic, a torn meniscus is one of the most common knee injuries, and causes pain, swelling and stiffness.

So how did the physically fit 52-year-old, who often wakes at 4 a.m. to work out, get injured?

“[I was] running along a hill where we went up the embankment and just jumped off a little rock, landed on it wrong,” says Wahlberg, who plays an adventure racer based on Mikael Lindnord, the athlete who bonded with a stray dog while in the midst of a competition.

“I kind of snapped my knee back and it tore, but when I got it x-rayed, the doctor was pretty adamant about doing the surgery because what happens is, if it locks, it can lock in a bent and flexed position and then you cannot move your knee until they perform the surgery,” he continues.

Despite the injury, Wahlberg decided to keep on filming. "I just said, ‘You know what? I got to kind of try to tough it out and see if I can get through the movie,’ ” says Wahlberg, who was also a producer on the film and didn't want to shut down production.

It was no easy feat. Wahlberg — who says be bonded with his canine costar Ukai — also did several of his own stunts, including in one scene in which his character zip-lines across a ravine.

“I remember coming back from a trip home, and the first day I was back I just walked up on this platform and I hadn't seen the zip line before, and they were like, ‘All right, you're going to go out with the cameraman,’ ” recalls Wahlberg, who largely shot the move in the Dominican Republic.

“And I was like, ‘What?’ I hadn't seen anybody else do it, and I hadn't been on it yet, and that was pretty nerve wracking,” he admits.

Wahlberg, who has four children, Ella, 20, Michael, 17, Brendan, 15, and Grace, 14, with wife Rhea Durham, also got the chance to hang out with Lindnord, whom he portrays in the movie. 

“First time we got together we went out on a kayak,” says Wahlberg, who calls the Sweden native an “incredible athlete.”

“He was always super supportive, knew when to push you and when to just kind of let you do your thing, and I think he was really honored that people wanted to see his story,” continues Wahlberg. 

Arthur the King is in theaters now.

For more on Mark Wahlberg, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now.