IT Band Pain
Welcome back movers, for another weekly blog post!
This week were talking IT band pain! You can experience this pain on your hip, side of your leg, and most commonly in your knee. If you have clicked on this blog post, you’re probably familiar with the IT band.
The IT band - or iliiotibial track is a thick band of fascia that originates from a few different muscles and when it becomes taut, can create pain.
When taut, the IT band can rub over bony protuberances and cause irritation and pain. Common points for this are the greater trochanter of the hip, as well as the lateral femoral condyle of the knee. Both of these cause pain with mild to moderate flexion of these joints and often persist for a while if the correct treatments are not utilized.
I’m willing to take a bet and say that you have seen someone roll out their IT band - or even rolled it out yourself. The reason this doesn’t work is because the band of fascia is so immensely thick it is practically bone. Foam rolling cannot directly influence the tension by only treating the band.
Proper treatment of IT band pain involves lengthening and releasing tension from the muscles that influence the IT band. That includes the quads, hamstring, tensor fasciae latae, and glutes.
As I’ve talked about before, releasing tension in a muscle sometimes doesn’t require any stretching but instead requires strengthening of that musculature, and even other stability muscles.
A usefully example of this is IT band pain that is caused by a very tight TFL muscle. The TFL muscle is tight because the glutes are not acting as stabilizers in the swing phase of gait (single leg stance) and therefore the TFL is trying to do it’s normal job, as well as act as a stabilizer for the glutes. Who wouldn’t get tired and tight from pulling someone else’s weight?!
I know this for a fact because I have suffered from ^ myself. Something I’m actively working on and experience when I run for long periods (and my glutes fatigue and stop working so my TFL has to take over).
Take a peak tomorrow for videos on how to handle this issue including areas to foam roll and areas to strengthen!
