- In this video, I'm gonna show you three exercises
you can use if you're struggling with ITB Syndrome.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome affects so many runners
and as part of an ITB syndrome rehab program,
you need to make sure that you're covering
mobility work, stability and activation work
and strength work for those all important glute muscles
and in this set of three exercises,
I'm gonna show you how you can cover off
all those things in one go.
Okay, so for the first of our exercises
in this ITB Syndrome routine
what I want to do is show you a stretch
for Tensor Fascia Lata, TFL,
the little muscle that lives up around
the outside of the hip
and when TFL gets tight,
because of the way in which it blends in
to the Iliotibial Band, the ITB,
it can start to cause extra tension through the ITB
which can be contributing to ITB Syndrome itself
and that pain around the outside of your knee.
So let me show you, let Marcus show you,
a simple TFL stretch.
Marcus, I'm gonna get you to put your right leg,
sorry, your left leg up onto the step for me,
or onto the box here,
and the box should be at around about knee height for you
so let's just test that out to begin with.
About knee height?
- Yep.
- Spot on, perfect.
Okay, so let's get up onto the box with that left foot.
Now, in this position, what I want you to do
is step across yourself slightly with that other leg,
okay, the standing leg.
So you should be slightly crossed over.
I want you to try, although you are crossed over,
to keep the hips square on and in that position
squeeze your butt and push your hips forwards a touch.
You should feel a bit of a stretch through your hip flexors
as much as anything else.
How we are gonna turn that hip flexor stretch
into a TFL stretch specifically
is reach up and over with this arm.
Okay, now with this arm reaching up and over
we've created almost a kind of bowing type effect
through, in your case, the right hand side of your body.
Try and keep this knee straight,
try and keep the hips pushing forwards
and try and reach over towards the wall
and you should feel a good stretch through
the outside of the hip.
Can you feel that?
Good, good.
I'm gonna get you to hold that to begin with
just for 20 seconds, just statically in that position
and then we can add a bit of movement
and what I want you to do is combine the movement
of pushing gently forwards with the hip,
it doesn't have to be big movements,
of one inch movements,
push forwards with the hip as you reach across to the wall
and that, it's not a bounce,
it's just a definite, intentional drive forwards and back,
should start to feel a little bit deeper as a stretch.
Can you feel that?
- Yeah.
- Again, if there's any pain; stop.
But you'd do that two or three times on each side.
As well as these rehab exercises,
if you're a runner who's struggling with ITB Syndrome
be sure to check out the link down in the description
because there's an article on my website
which goes through all the underlying causes
which you need to know about,
you need to understand,
you need to be able to deal with
to be able to overcome ITB Syndrome
and your knee pain.
Do check out that article,
there's also a free download as part of the article
which you can get your hands on
to give you another set of resources for ITB Syndrome.
So, the second exercise in our ITB Syndrome rehab routine
is all about strengthening glute med.
Gluteus Medius, one of the important hip muscles,
really helps provide lateral stability around the hip.
So if you see a runner who's doing a lot of this
as they're running then that is an indication
that glute med isn't doing it's job.
It's not providing that lateral stability
and when we lack that lateral stability
muscles like TFL, the muscle that we started stretching
in the first exercise, end up overworking.
So a lot of the time the pattern we see with ITB Syndrome
is weak glute med, overly tight TFL,
therefore too much tension through the ITB itself.
So, an exercise Marcus is going to demonstrate now
is fantastic for strengthening through glute med itself.
Marcus, let's get you lying on the floor
in a long, kind of side line position.
Fantastic.
And what I want you to do to begin with,
exactly as you have done here,
is create a cradle for your head.
So the arm that's on the ground,
you're going to bend it at the elbow
and at the shoulders just bring yourself up to a position
where you can, with your hand, just cradle under your head
so you're not just leaving your head flopping down
onto the ground.
It should be comfortable there for you, yeah?
Perfect.
At the other end I want you to focus on the lower leg
and create kind of a figure four here.
So this figure four is going to create
a lot of stability for you.
Okay, that should feel like a comfortable,
yet strong, position.
It's kinda like I'm putting you in the recovery position
here a little bit but obviously not as you would do.
However, what I want to do is make sure that looking down
hips are stacked, shoulders are stacked.
I don't want you rotated out,
I don't want you rotated in.
Kinda like we'd coach side plank in some respects,
we want everything nicely in line
but then we're gonna work with this top leg.
I want you to keep yourself straight at the knee, okay,
and from here I want you to do two
distinctly different movements.
Okay, firstly we're gonna come up
and I want you feel like leading with the heel.
So you're gonna come up and then you're gonna come back.
Okay, and you're gonna hold that position for 10 seconds,
up and back, so we're abducting the hip against gravity
and we're extending the hip in that abducted position.
And as I'm talking this through,
you should be starting to feel glute med
beginning to work hard there.
Okay, you're gonna come in and down, and relax.
Okay, we're gonna do that again.
Up and kick back.
You should feel with that kick back
that you're able to feel glute med kicking in,
strong activation there,
but I want you to avoid the tendency to, as you kick back,
rotate back with the hips, okay.
We're gonna keep them stacked.
If you do have a tendency to rotate back with hips,
what I want you to do is take this top arm
and reach over there towards the camera.
That is taking you out of this stacked position
with the shoulders, creating a bit of rotation
through the torso but with this rotation
is winding you up so that you can't rotate the opposite way
with the pelvis, it keeps your pelvis honest
and therefore forces you to work through the hip.
I know I'm supported you there
so hopefully you're not working too hard.
We'll try again now with this reach.
And kick back, that should feel very glutey.
- Yep.
- Yep?
Okay, we'll be looking for 10 times 10 second holds
with this on each side.
If you get really good at that,
you can start extending out the time period holding wise
to a point where you're even up and hold for 30 seconds
and you do 30 seconds on each side,
two or three times through.
That's a real challenge.
10 times, 10 second holds is a good place
for you to kick off.
Okay, so the third and final exercise
in this little collection of ITB Syndrome rehab exercises
is what we refer to as a fire hydrant.
So we're gonna start out just so far away from the wall
that you can, without having to lean over,
just give a little fingertip touch.
So come across just ever so slightly.
There we go.
So the wall is there for stability, nothing more,
you're not gonna be relying on it.
We want to work specifically on single leg stability.
So it's an interesting exercise 'cause you're going to be
balancing on one leg but really the work
is going to be done with the other leg
but you'll feel the effort when it comes to stability
in that standing leg.
So what I want you to do is on this standing leg,
so we'll use your inside leg relative to the wall,
so your left leg is the standing leg,
you're gonna just slightly bend the knee
and just bring the other leg off the ground,
just picking your heel up so that you're in this
kind of figure four type position.
Lovely.
From there, what I want you to do
is focus on a similar movement to the movement we had
in our side lying leg lifts, okay?
So our glute med exercise.
I want you to drive out against the band
and then back slightly with the heel.
Okay, and then you're gonna come in and back.
Good.
We're gonna work through those,
we're gonna do 20 of those.
Keep it more of a bend in the standing leg if you can.
Little pitch forward with the torso,
it'll help you get a little bit more extension
through the hip, or relative extension through the hip,
keep your chest up.
Good.
Out and push back.
What can you feel?
- Both these sides.
- Yeah, it's a really good exercise
because it challenges your glutes in two different ways
on the two different sides.
So to create this abduction and extension
you're having to work through those glutes
on the moving leg against the tension of the band
but the tension of the band is also trying to pull
this standing knee in towards the midline.
Can you feel that?
You're having to work really hard on the standing leg
around the hip, again those glutes
but in a very different way to produce the stability.
Do you wanna turn yourself around and do 20
on the other side as well?
- Yeah.
- Good, so standing knee, little knee bend,
gently pitch forwards, okay,
and then pull and kick back and in and back.
Don't rush the movement,
work for the bigger movement you can control
if that makes sense.
So after a point, as you pull out,
you'd have to pitch over to the side.
I don't want you to do that,
it's only working through the size of motion
that you have the control of and over time
fatigue will start to creep up.
Now, of course, you've also just had the benefit,
or challenge, of having the legs doing the opposite
on the previous set so you're probably carrying
a bit of fatigue into this set as well.
Can you feel that on the standing leg?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Not surprised.
Again, I've said sets of 20 for Marcus
'cause I know he's good for it
but if, for you, after 10 or 15
you're starting to really feel this
and stability and form goes out of the window
then break at 10, break at 12, break at 15.
Give yourself a bit of a shake,
swap legs over and go again.
Form is everything with these.
If you found this video helpful,
don't forget to go and check out the 30 day challenge
on the Kinetic Revolution website.
Again, the link is down in the description.
It goes way beyond ITB rehab.
It's all about introducing you to a regular routine
for mobility work, strength work, stability work,
all the injury prevention work that we need to,
as runners, make sure that we make time for
in our program.
It's a free resource, just head on over there,
throw your email in and get the full program.