ITBS getting better results with…

ITBS getting better results with…

Life and #notrunning have gotten in the way of making inane posts on this blog lately.  But I do have some news that I feel is worth sharing.

Nothing says kink more than buying some ankle cuffs and restraints and doing some physical therapy with them.

It’s about ITBS or Iliotibial Band Syndrome aka the outside of my knee hurts when I run.   I’ve been having issues with this all summer long starting back around May.

I’m happy to say that I’m finally seeing some progress in being able to run pain free both during and after.   The thing that seemed to finally make an appreciable difference is buying some resistance bands and some ankle manacles.

Here’s some links to what I’m using (no affiliation) with my notes on them –

Resistance Bands   –  These so far are doing okay.  I had some longer not looped straps that broke pretty easily.  I combine the medium and the heavy bands.

Ankle Cuffs – These work pretty well.  I used a couple of carabiners to connect the loops on them together and put the band in the carabiners but got tired of the rattling so now I put the cuffs through the resistance bands instead.

Nothing says kink more than buying some ankle cuffs and restraints and doing some physical therapy with them.  Just be careful, if you break a band it can sting like a well something that stings a lot.  Now if you’re into that then great.  If you’re not then it’s not so great.

After adding the cuffs and resistance bands I started seeing more improvement.

My current routine:

  • 2 or 3 times a week is to do 2-3 sets of 20 reps of sidesteps each direction
  • 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps of front kicks and back kicks
  • 3-4 planks of between 1 and 2 minutes each
  • 2 sets of 15-20 curls with 35# kettlebells, holding both at the same time
  • 2 sets of 15-20 squats while holding 2 x 35# kettlebells
  • 2 sets of ‘until my ass can’t take it anymore’ of bridges.

The biggest thing that seems to have helped, although it’s correlation not necessarily causation, is adding the resistence band’ed side steps and front and back kicks.   I dropped clamshells and… something else in favor of those.

But finally as of this last labor day I was able to do a 5 mile trail race at about an 11:15 pace and not experience any significant pain (other than falling twice, once on each knee, stupid rocks) from my ITB area.

TREX