Friday, April 6, 2012

IT Band Recovery

The key to happy running is healthy running, to stay healthy you need to prevent injuries.  The best prevention is to follow the rule of Gradual Progress be sure to get rest and don't overdo your training.

However, if you are like me and thousands of other runners, you will have the unfortunate experience of an injury sometime during your training. The causes and types of injuries are numerous from bone fractures, to foot injuries, to iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS).  ITBS is one of the more common running injuries that typically appears after a quick increase in the amount of training or miles you put in.

You can minimize the impact of an injury by continuously sensing your body and if something begins to not feel right, you should stop what you are doing immediately before it worsens.  In numerous cases, people with the start of an injury make it much worse by forcing themselves to push through the pain.  That is not the correct thing to do, and you will regret it later during the weeks or months spent recovering.

The iliotibial band is a length of fibrous tissue (not muscle) that runs along the outside of the femur between the hip and knee.  It's purpose is to stabilize your knee and hip.  Iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) is the name given to the pain resulting from inflammation caused by rubbing of the iliotibial band against the outside of the knee and hip.

My ITBS started as a dull but painful sensation on the outside of my right knee.  I knew it was bad when the pain began to get worse during my run.  Note: If the pain is getting worse, you are making it worse and you need to stop immediately.  After I had stopped, there was a sudden sharp pain.  If you experience any injury, it is best to diagnose it properly by going to your doctor to ensure that you don't think it is something different like runner's knee.  However, runner's knee is typically associated with pain around the cap of the knee, and ITBS is associated with pain on the outside of the knee (right side of right knee, or left side of left knee) and possibly pain or popping on the outside of your hip.

I took a day or two off, and tried to go out and run again.  The pain came right back after a mile or two.  After doing some online reading, I discovered that recovery can take at least a week or longer for the pain to go away.  I also discovered that ITBS can be caused by supination or over-pronation, running on banked roads, running up or down steep hills, or muscle imbalance (hip abductors, gluteus medius).

I took a full week off, no running.  I did a few basic strength training exercises targeted towards my hip abductors and gluteus medius.  A popular exercises is 'clamshells'.  To do a clamshell, lay flat on your side with your knees out in front of you, bent at 90 degrees.  You rotate the top knee up/out, and then back.  Repeat for 10-12 times on each side.  You can increase the resistance of this stretch by using a latex resistance bandtied into a loop wrapped around your thigh near the knees.  I also did some basic lunges, and walking.  A new pair of running shoesto replace the previous pair with 500-600+ miles seemed to also help.  A product that was recommended to me by my local running shop was a simple high-density foam roller (shown below).  The roller is used to apply firm pressure to the IT band to allow it to safely stretch out to remove tightness which causes friction on the outside of the knee and/or hip.  I began to do this daily before each run to reduce tightness.

A foam roller can help safely stretch out a tight IT band before and after a workout.
After a couple of weeks, my running was back to normal and I was happy to have that ITBS problem behind me.



Running Injuries

Click to View Full Infographic

No comments:

Post a Comment