6 Exercises to Fix a Tight IT Band / ITB Syndrome Pain [for GOOD!]

in this video you're going to discover why stretching and foam rolling give limited relief for iliotibial band syndrome or a tighter painful it band and strategies and exercises to give you lasting results [Music] hey what's up coach e here from precision movement and today we're going to talk about iliotibial band syndrome and how to get to the root cause to make sure that you are addressing the factors that will give you lasting results now what is it band syndrome well it's pain in the lateral aspect or the outside of the knee that's down around this area and it's very common in runners and cyclists especially when ramping up volume and intensity after say a little winter break or a break for whatever reason jumping back in and going hard at it can often result in it ban syndrome and it's one of the most common injuries in runners so before we get into the exercises and the strategies i'd like to quickly look at the anatomy just so that you understand all of the different structures that are involved with this issue here we have the bio digital app and shout out to biodigital for making such a a great app that's so easy to use and obviously we've got the right arm and core musculature removed that's so we can see the underlying hip muscles easier so let's zoom in first up what is the it band this is the it band right here it originates on the pelvis on the ilium and it runs on the outside of the thigh and inserts down into the tibia so this is the shin bone as you can see there are a bunch of muscles underneath so the it band is superficial so if we look underneath let's take it away for a second we've got the tensor fasciae latae here and this muscle inserts fully into the it band so when it contracts it pulls on that it band as you can see there if it contracts it's going to pull on the it band and tense it up even more we've also got the glute medius this has insertion into the it band and then the glute maximus up to 80 percent of the fibers of the glute max insert into the it band that's this white section right here it'll flow right into the it band underneath we've got this muscle the vastus lateralis that's the lateral quadriceps head and it's not attached to the it band but as you'll learn in the first exercise sometimes it can get stuck to the it band because the it band is right on top of it you can see it there it's fully right on top of that muscle i can zoom in a bit it's right there it lies right over top of the vastus lateralis so if there's adhesions between the it band and the vastus lateralis we've got to remove those because that could cause increased tension on the it band foam rolling the it band for a tight a t band or it band syndrome is not something that we recommend and the reason why is because when you foam roll you're just going to compress this tissue here nothing is going to be really lengthened or stretched out when we do active self myofascial release what we're doing is separating the it band from the vastus lateralis so proper glide can occur between those two tissues now functionally the tfl is the muscle that puts the most tension combined with the glute max puts the most tension on the it band and the thing with the tfl it's often implicated in knight band syndrome and it's often got trigger points and feels uncomfortable this muscle right here so in the front of the hip just on the outside of the front of the hip this muscle it has overlapping functions with the glute medius the glute maximus and the iliopsoas here so if any of these muscle other muscles the iliopsoas if it's not functioning correctly for flexing the hip the tfl can jump in and try to compensate for that same with the glute maximus in hip external or hip abduction and the glute medius in hip abduction the tfl can compensate for either of those muscles if they're not functioning correctly the problem is if you look at the tfl it's small and it's not well suited for those functions the glute medius max are much bigger and the iliopsoas the line of action to flex the hip is much more suited to that movement so that's just a little bit of insight into why comp compensatory mechanisms specifically of the tfl can result in increased tension of the it band and ultimately it-band syndrome pain and inflammation now you have a better understanding of all of the structures around the iliotibial band and its function and the anatomy but why do some people who you know you have two runners they're both off the winter break and they both ramp up their volume and intensity the same way why does one get it banned syndrome but the other doesn't well i've broken up the different risk factors into three main categories the first is structural now structural refers to either knock knees or valgus knees or bow knees or varus knees and both of these structural conditions can increase your risk of it-band syndrome for reasons why we'll talk about in a second the second factor is functional look at the bottom of your shoes your running shoes or shoes that you've worn a lot if the tread is more worn out on the outside of the shoe then that indicates you weight bear through the outside of your foot and that's going to predispose you to it band syndrome and the third factor i term compensatory and this is especially related to sitting because when we sit we're in this hip flexed position and the iliopsoas the hip flexor muscle the main hip flexor shuts off the glute maximus shuts off and because the tensor fasciae latae muscle which inserts directly into the it band because that does both hip flexion and hip abduction it can try to compensate for both a shut off glute max and a shut off iliopsoas also because we're in the seated position the tfl tightens up it's in the shortened position so it compensates and adapts to that shortened position all of these different risk factors especially the compensatory risk factor cause increased tension through the iliotibial band and when you have increased tension through that iliotibial band there's going to be greater wear and tear on those structures it could be the bursa or it could be the it band slipping over top of the bone with greater tension that's gonna cause it to get painful and inflamed so now that we know the risk factors what do we do about it well there are a variety of different exercises and i'm gonna take you through six exercises that address different aspects that contribute to it ban syndrome and contribute to those risk factors the first technique is active self myofascial release specifically trying to separate the it band from the vastus lateralis so if you go remember the anatomy that i showed you the it band sits right on top of the vastus lateralis which is the lateral quadriceps head to do this technique we want to lie on our side and we're going to use your thumb and your index finger and what you're going to do is you're going to try to pinch around the it band you start with your knee fully extended knees resting on top of each other and then from here break your heel to your butt activate those hamstrings while you put tension down and in and you can slide down towards the knee and what this is doing is because we're activating the hamstrings to bring your heel to your butt to flex the knee that helps to shut off the quad and we're lengthening the quad at the same time so that combined with the thumb and the index finger pressure that can help strip the vastus lateralis from the it band so you just work all the way up the it bands you can even work into the tfl a little bit and you work that for one to two minutes the second exercise for it band syndrome i call the slumpy psoas activator so it does exactly that it activates the psoas in the position where it often gets shut off which is sitting for this technique you have to sit on something stable you don't want your wheelie chair for this one so a nice stable chair and you start off in a slumped position from here you're gonna lift one knee up and then your opposite hand goes on top of the knee and you press and activate you should feel activation in the hip flexor area and then as you're holding and activating you go from slumpy to good posture and try to extend the lumbar spine and tilt the pelvis anteriorly a little bit once you're there you hold for five to seven seconds and then let it down slow and under control now if you find the tfl muscle is firing up a lot here well you don't want that we want the psoas it's more medial the tfl is more on the outside of the hip a couple things we can do for that one is externally rotate the hip so the knee let the knee fall out a little bit and do the same thing from there lift the foot off the ground opposite hand activate and then go into good posture keeping a little bit of external rotation in the hip that might help if that doesn't help try the the next thing which is to jam a thumb right into the tfl jam it in there pretty hard okay and do the external rotation keep the thumb in there lift the foot off the ground hand on the knee press activate and get into good posture and the thumb in there can help you to feel the tfl on and it can also inhibit the tfl because it'll hurt if it tries to contract when something is jammed into it so try those two things and that should help you get more psoas and less tfl for this technique do two sets anywhere from three to five reps holding for five to ten seconds the third exercise addresses another compensatory mechanism the it band as we saw inserts into the lateral aspect of the knee and in when the knee is flexed it can help with the movement of tibial external rotation if the muscle that's supposed to do that which is the lateral hamstring or the biceps femoris if that muscle isn't working right then the tfl via the it band will try to come in and compensate for that well again we don't want that so we're going to try to wake up that lateral hamstring to do this movement for us for this we want to sit down again on something stable knees at 90 degrees and just lift the heels off the ground and keeping the knees where they are rotate the heels in which is external rotation of the tibia and try to palpate and feel the hamstring on and from there when you're rotated in you want to pretend like you're sliding your heels to your butt so you're activating the hamstrings by flexing the knee more and then hold that activation for 5 to 10 seconds that will wake up the lateral hamstring for this function of external tibial rotation and hopefully shut off the tfl from contributing to that so go back to neutral in between each rep and then again lift the heels externally rotate and then pull heels to butt to really fire up the hamstrings again activation technique so do two sets three to five reps holding for five to ten seconds the fourth exercise is the monster band walk and for this exercise you will need a strength band one of these loops which are very common and very useful we'll use it for this and the next exercise and you got to know the really important cues for this first cue is put the band around the mid foot and what this does is it helps you activate external rotation because it's trying to turn your toes in you got to fight that so you get external hip rotation which is going to fire up glute max a little bit more and then you go into a quarter squat so don't stand straight up a quarter squat and from there you step out to the side and then in slowly control the foot the trailing foot in you do about four steps in one direction four steps in the other direction and that'll help to fire up the glute max the glute medius and hopefully shut off the tensor fasciae latae from over working in this movement do two sets anywhere from four to six steps in either direction the fifth exercise i'd like to show you for iliotibial band syndrome is the midline muscle activator with the hinge movement so for this you'll need your strength band and to loop it around something stable so the squat rack is good you don't want to do it around a flimsy little chair because it'll just fall over or get dragged around so you loop it around just above the knee and then the band is anchored at about the same level just above the knee and you step away from the anchor so that you have a little bit of tension you don't need a ton of tension for this now the first thing that you need is something called metatarsal pressure through the foot so the metatarsals they're the bones imagine this is the foot they're the bones right underneath each toe you want to be able to push through all of those bones i've done a an in-depth presentation on this which i suggest you check out because metatarsal pressure is really important for anybody who's on their feet a lot especially those who run play sports like tennis or anything ground-based and what it does is it fires up the intrinsic foot muscles the deep muscles on the foot to create the arch it gives you the active arch so if you want to check out that presentation there will be a link up above or in the description but for now just think about metatarsal pressure and then slight knee bend and then you're going to step your other foot back from here we want to maintain alignment from the foot to the hip so don't let the knee fall out you got the metatarsal pressure and then do a hip hinge remote with most of your weight up on the front foot here so hip hinge nice and slow focused on metatarsal pressure and maintaining alignment from foot to hip nice and slow like so and what this exercise is going to do is activate the adductors and the internal rotators of the hip that will give you stability and it will help to improve alignment so whenever you're on one foot you'll have better alignment and stability through the hip to hopefully take away from tfl overactivity and any uneven weight-bearing due to instability in any of the muscles through from the foot to the hip for this exercise two sets anywhere from three to five repetitions will be good the last exercise i'd like to show you for it band syndrome is the reverse london twist which looks like this now there are a couple reasons why this exercise is beneficial for it band syndrome one is because we are going to lengthen the tensor fasciae latae when we rotate over that puts a nice little stretch on this area the tensor fasciae latae which can decrease the force and the tension through the it band and two it's great for firing up the glute max and the glute mead on the front foot again use metatarsal pressure and the key is staying nice and tall and maintaining alignment of the thigh over the foot so we got that straight alignment right there again just like in the midline muscle activator technique for this two sets anywhere from four to six reps per side is great so there we have six exercises to address different aspects of it band syndrome and i hope one or all of them are great but i hope one or two are exercises that maybe you might not have come across yet that can ultimately give you lasting relief now if you like these exercises and you want a little resource that has every exercise rep sets and important form cues put together in a pdf then click the link up above or it'll be in the description down below or at the end of the video to download a free cheat sheet that my team has put together it's a pdf a few pages and it has everything that we've talked about all the exercises that we've talked about in one easy to follow resource so you can check that out via the links around this video that's it for it ban syndrome hope you learned something and i hope it helps you and i'd love to hear your results so if you use this and you get relief then let us know below make sure you like and subscribe for more videos like this we'll be publishing videos regularly and if you have any topics that you'd like me to cover in a future video leave them down below in the comment section until next time take care peace

Channel: Precision Movement

Views: 158,406

Keywords: flexibility, mobility, stretching, stretches, exercises, routines, programs, workouts, fitness, training, strength, conditioning, bodyweight, decrease pain, movement, injuries, rehab, prehab, it band, iliotibial band, hip pain, it band syndrome, iliotibial band syndrome, it band stretch, knee pain, it band pain, it band tightness, it band exercises, it band stretches, tfl stretch, it band injury, it band massage, it band foam roll, runners knee, tight it band, Precision Movement, Coach E

Id: UnP2HFcr7FY

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021