Most Runners Make This IT Band Mistake—And It Makes It Worse

[00:00:00] You’ve built up your running aerobic base. You’re also doing hill sprints and maybe even eyeing up 10 k, half marathon or even a full marathon. But there’s a weird ache on the outside of your knee and sometimes goes all the way up to your hip and it flares up when you go down hills and gets worse as the rung goes on.

[00:00:17] Foam rolling. Helps until it really doesn’t it. Band syndrome is the one injury that runners mismanage the most, and this episode will fix just that. I’m gonna show you what actually causes it. Band syndrome, why foam rolling the outside of your leg won’t fix it, and stretching, et cetera. The real muscles you need to target and strengthen and how to do.

[00:00:37] When it’s okay to get back to running and when you absolutely should not run. And if you stick around in the middle, an actual free download to fix your runner’s knee and base training plan to get back to Proper Fitness is available for you. And a bunch more. I’ll be joined for all the science back stuff by Sam Shearman Pro Running Physiotherapist here at Sydney, Australia.

[00:00:56] And founder of 10 Weeks to Strength Running app. I’m Daren D Lake Sub three hour marathon at 10 hour Ironman finisher, run coach, and human Guinea pig of the last 30 years trying to figure out how to get 1% better each day and tell all the self-coach runners of the world out there how to do it. Let’s get into the episode.

[00:01:15] So with ITB syndrome, what happens is the Iliotibial band, which is a B’Av thick band of fascia that runs along the outside of our leg, it originates from two muscles. So your TFL tends to fascia latte, and also your glute max. Where’s the TFL? Uh, right at the front of the hips. If you get your hip bone at the front of your hip, you bring your hands down slightly.

[00:01:38] And a little bit more lateral. That’s where the TFL sits. The ITB comes from those two muscles. It runs down the outside of the leg and attaches onto the tibia. Now with the ITB, if it starts to tension, it will start to compress a little fat bed and bursa that sits on the outside of your knee. That’s what gets inflamed.

[00:01:55] So the immediate treatment sometimes is, again, here I’m recommending anti-inflammatories here, but this is another one. I’d say start with some ibuprofen twice a day, five days as the initial treatment. You don’t wanna take anti-inflammatories for too long ’cause it can cause gastrointestinal, obstacle and stomach aches.

[00:02:11] So I don’t want everyone with ITB to every time pain comes on, start popping anti-inflammatories, but it’s an initial, you know, treatment. This hasn’t happened before. That would be my go-to. In terms of release work, we wanna focus on releasing the TFL in particular. Lots of people think about, you know, massage the ITB let’s foam roll the ITB, but that does nothing for the fascia area.

[00:02:31] It’s, it’s strong and it’s thick. You can, it was one study, I can’t remember how much force was placed through it, but they put a huge amount of force through the ITB and. There was basically no, almost little to none, no stretch through it. You need to focus on releasing your TFL as well as the glutes. And then in terms of, uh, strengthening exercises, we want to imp improve our glute media strength because that will stop the TFL, you know, trying to kick in, trying attention up.

[00:02:58] And that in turn tensions the ITB. So you’re not sure how to actually fix your IT band issues. Or you want to know what to do next, make sure you grab my free IT Band and Runner’s Knee Recovery Based Training plan. It puts everything we talked about into practice, and you’ll even learn how to fix your Achilles if you have Achilles issues.

[00:03:17] And if you wanna get mentally stronger too, ’cause your brain is part of this whole running better equation, you’ll automatically sign up for a free weekly newsletter that takes five minutes or less to read each week. Check out the QR code right here, link below or link in the show notes of your podcast players app if you’re listening.

[00:03:32] Let’s get back into it. Alright, so ongoing eight to 12 weeks, uh, has gone, they’ve seen you a couple times. What would you then, uh, have them like, they’re like, let’s say they’re a hundred percent Yeah. What would you have them do to maintain Oh, I’d make sure they’re maintaining their strength. So with the more strength that ITB syndrome wanna start with, you know, your simple GLD exercises, you want to do them with your knee extended, such as like a sideline leg raise, ’cause anything like clamshells and whatnot.

[00:03:59] While the knee is bent, it’s gonna be painful. So you wanna do your glute exercises with a long, long leg. And then as we progress, they begin to come more functional. Bulgarian split Scots work well here. Again, pain needs to be minimal. Nothing more than a three, four outta 10. As they continue to progress through their rehab, we’re, you know, maintaining, you know, building their kilometers back up.

[00:04:21] We can have a look at gate tr retraining. I am mindful of changing a runner’s gate too much, but if there’s anything glaring out there that needs to be addressed, it would be a good time to review what they’re looking like on the treadmill. Anything else you wanna add about, I, I call it, it. I call it band issues like, uh, it TB syndrome, ITB syndrome.

[00:04:41] Yeah. Uh, anything else you wanna say about this and, and, you know, this is a big thing that comes up in the runner’s community. Um, anything. Oh, I mean, it was, it was my, my major running injury when I trained for my first marathon. Oh. It was when I first started physio, many training errors were made. I made a few mistakes and I did it on the Blackmore’s half marathon, a month out from the Melbourne Marathon.

[00:05:04] Did it. It was extremely painful. Like I had pain, I had like a slight injury in my hip and silly me just, you know, went and did the half marathon and. Halfway through, I was like, why is the outside of my knee hurt? I’m like, is this referred pain coming from my hip? Soon as I finished the run, I was like, oh, couldn’t walk.

[00:05:22] Had ITV syndrome straight away. So again, first line treatment. I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen a patient walking with, without that line was looking. Um, but first line treatment. Again, anti-inflammatories. Lots of release work, start working the glutes, but I rested for two weeks. It was so painful, but unfortunately when I started to run again.

[00:05:40] The pain was still there and I was two weeks out from my marathon. Now I’m doing a whole do as I say, not as I do moment, but I looked at the research evidence for ITB syndrome and cortisone injections. Now, I’m not usually, this would not be first line treatment. I’d hardly recommend this, but doing this marathon meant a lot to me, and plus, I wanted to be a little bit of a experiment Guinea pig on myself.

[00:05:59] So I went to the doctors, got a referral, I got an injection. Two weeks out from the marathon, I looked at the research on ITV syndrome and it said. You have a, a trend for decline in pain after one leak and a significant decline in pain after two weeks. And that’s exactly what happens, the run before the marathon.

[00:06:17] Happy days off I go, did the marathon, but then afterwards, my outer part of my knee just didn’t feel quite right. And this was for a few months. Mm. So it felt, it felt almost stiff. It was a really peculiar feeling. So I don’t want people to take away from this, oh, I’m gonna get cortisone or fix everything up.

[00:06:33] Cortisone is a steroid. It’s detrimental for tissues, luckily for the ITB, it’s just into the fat pad and the bursa. But I still would not recommend it unless you’ve exhausted all options and you are, you know, you’ve gone to a sports doctor, you’ve gone to. Specialist because as I said, it, it, it’s helpful in one regard, but can be harmful in another.

[00:06:52] Once again, I was a very, very fresh physio, hadn’t quite got into the running stuff yet, and yes, many training error were made. Did the run though again, if you’re dealing with IT band issues right now, I have the fix for you scan the QR code right here to get the free download. Or the link below, and you can get an immediate recovery plan, plus base training program, and you’ll sign up for my weekly newsletter, five minutes or less each week.

[00:07:15] So I created an entire episode breaking down why five specific exercises prevent not just knee pain, but shin splints, runner’s, knee Achilles issues, and other common runner injuries. Video right here or link below in the description or in the show notes of your podcast players app. If you’re listening, peace.