If you’ve never had IT Band Syndrome, you might think this doesn’t apply to you, but if you reach down right now and press into the outside of your thigh with your fingers, I’m willing to bet big money that it feels sore to do that.
If it doesn’t feel sore in the exact spot you chose, there’ll be one. It’s often about 2-3 inches above the knee, sometimes it’s exactly on the side of the leg, and sometimes it’s up a bit, but it’ll be there.
If you can find that pain in your leg, this applies to you.
Conventional strategies to deal with this pain always dive straight into the symptom. They’ll have you foam rolling or have someone else massage (or ‘strip’) the outside of your leg (which makes me wince just thinking about doing that because it’s so painful!), and they have you doing stretches in some contorted position to get to the outside of your hip and thigh, and you’ll probably end up with a list of exercises like side leg raises and clams.
But this is actually about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
In fact, Canadian Paul Ingraham described it like this:
“‘Elongating’ your iliotibial band with intense massage strokes is one of the most popular alternative treatments for ITBS, but it works about as well as it would on a truck tire”
And here’s why.
Unfortunately, combined with a tight TFL (the muscle in your pocket which gets tight from too much sitting) is usually tight hip flexors and adductors, which contribute to the internal rotation of the leg bone in the hip socket, creating a twist in the knee and excessive LENGTH in the IT Band.
Since the IT Band gets pulled LONG, it’s important to notice that the conventional treatment of this issue is actually serving to further lengthen the tissue AND tighten the TFL muscle by the use of exercises such as side leg lifts, clams and side steps using a resistance band, which is why is doesn’t improve things very much.
To fix the issue properly, first we need to unwind the tightness that is causing the TFL, hip flexor and adductor muscles to get so short before we start doing anything with the IT Band itself.
The movement suggested in the video is a great one to do, and inside your FREE mostmotion® account, you’ll find more movements to help, like my “Lower Back Pain Solution” video playlist my “Hip Flexors 5 Ways” video and much more, so if you haven’t got your FREE account already, you can create one below