♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapists,
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our own opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna show you
how and why to massage the I.T. band
and that's the iliotibial band we're talking about.
- So what are we talking about?
- Let's go right to it, Brad.
- All right. - Let's get right into it.
So I got my little marker here
and you could take your little marker here but
the first thing we wanna show you, the I.T. band
is a thick band that runs all the way from the hip.
- It's over here.
- Right, actually the anterior superior iliac spine,
now let me show that on here.
- That's another mouthful. - Yeah.
So you look at your pelvis bone here,
that first bump you feel right here,
that's where it's attaching tensor fascia Lata
and I'll show you how that attaches to the IT band
but it runs all the way down to the knee
and that's why an IT band syndrome,
you actually get knee pain quite often.
You'll get bit right here on the side of the knee,
- Yep. from biking or from running,
any type of repetitive type effort exercise.
But the first thing we wanna to do
when we massage the IT band
is actually massage the muscles that attach to it.
So this is the tensor fascia lata.
- Yeah.
- Now, that was supposed to be green here,
- Well, this board.
- That's the problem. - Ill try it there.
- There we go, try it there.
- There we go.
Now look at that, there's the IT band
the tensor fascia lata, not a real big muscle.
Again, it attaches to that anterior superior iliac spine,
- It's right about where your pocket is.
- You're gonna massage right there
but you could see the big glutes also attach into it.
So I would go ahead and massage those also Brad
- Sure.
- and catch 'em both.
But this is where little controversy comes in.
So the IT band is a really thick band.
- Right.
- And I have heard it said that you could
you could pick up a little Toyota car
with it or something, it's that thick
- Yeah it's, a heavy duty band.
It's right there to there right where these stripes are
- And what a lot of people will say is you can massage
that all day and you wouldn't lengthen it at all.
You know what I mean? - Sure.
- But I have read this
in a number of places that it can get
Here's the side view of it.
It can get adhesed down to the structures below it.
- Right. So you can see how fit it is from this angle.
This is looking straight
on it's that thin band, but it's, it's really wide.
- Yeah. And it can, again, get adhesed down.
So you do want to massage
along the length of it to break up the adhesions.
So, there will be a benefit to massaging the band itself.
- Sure. - Okay.
We'll show you that right now.
Okay. Now that you know where
the tensor fascia Lata muscle is
and the I.T. band, let's go ahead
and try massaging it, Brad. - Sure.
So on me, I'm going to go ahead and find
that bump, where the anterior superior iliac spine is
- Yep.
- And right below that is the tensor fascia lata.
So I'm going to go ahead.
Now, I got the mother of all massage guns here.
This is for the big athlete
for someone probably larger in size, pretty aggressive.
- Yep.
- It's got a metal head too, that screws on.
I like this Brad.
- Yeah, that's the aggressive one.
- Yep. I'm going to get the muscles nice and relaxed.
And I'm going to work that muscle.
But then we talked again about, you could hit the back
the glutes because the glutes attach into the I.T. band.
- Right. And so they're here and they wrap around
and that would, the white Stripe would be the I.T. band.
- And then we talked about going
down the band itself because it might be adhesed down.
So we're going to work out all the way along the band.
Now Brad's got a smaller massage gun.
- But it's - Powerful.
it's going to be more, you're probably good for
- A majority of people.
- Yeah, I would say between 50 and 75% of the people
it's certainly good enough for me on this.
And I got a flat head on there.
It's not as aggressive
and you may want to start out with that.
There's a head like this, which is pretty aggressive
which some people might use, especially in the buttock.
I would stay away from it
on the tensor fascia. - On the groin too.
I would be a little careful around the groin.
There are some lymph nodes there.
- Yeah. Right in femoral crease.
And you need to be careful, do not massage those.
Cause there it's going to give you problems
- The round one here that that would also work
along the band.
- Yep.
- Probably fairly comfortable.
I wouldn't use the field goal, would you?
- No, no.
- Yeah. We talked about the bullet
and you know, basically if you find a tender spot
I would work this tender spot, you know
and see if he can get it feeling better.
You can go ahead massage quite a long time
actually if there's a tender spot
as long as you're not making the spot worse.
So yeah. - If you've got a tender spot
it hurts to go right on it.
Just work above it or below it, you know?
And you will eventually
you may have not even hit it one day.
You might work just above it and below it
and come back the next day and see how it works.
- Remember we had that one friend of yours, Brad
that did the I.T. band stretch.
He had terrible pain from, I mean
he was going to stop running. - Yeah.
He could barely walk and just by stretching it
he actually got the pain to diminish and could
get back to that running.
- Right, right, that was Dan.
- So anyway, we got lots of massage gun options here.
I think this is one of them where it's a better to use a gun
than it is to use your hands.
I think it's just very difficult to massage your I.T. band.
- It's a big area
your hands are gonna wear out very quick.
You know, just fatigue very quickly.
- Then we have to treat you for hand pain.
(laugh)
- Well, we've got carpal tunnel video.
- That's right, we got that coming up.
So, check it out.
(upbeat guitar music)