hey everybody it's Doctor Jo and princess Remy, yeah, I know! and today we're gonna show
you exercising the stretches for IT band syndrome so let's get started.
so there's a lot of controversy out there about the IT band
and can you really stretch the IT band. what are you trying to stretch?
well the TFL or the tensor fasciae latae is really the muscle belly of the
IT band. so I personally believe it's kind of like your quad muscle with your
quad tendon. so when you're stretching the area, to me it doesn't really matter
what you're stretching. if you're stretching it and you're getting pain
relief, that's all that really matters. there's also a little controversy about
foam rolling and is it really helping or is it doing more damage. so I'm just
going to show you some stretches and some exercises that don't use the foam
roll. so we're gonna start off with using a strap. and so some of these stretches
that we're gonna start off with are not just for the IT band or the TFL, that's
for the hamstrings and quads and everything around it because they're all
really connected. so if you have a strap that has a loop that's great.
you can also just use a belt or a dog leash, those work really nice as well. so
the one that I like to start off with is just lying down. and the reason I like
the one lying down is you can kind of relax your back and just get a really
good stretch in there and just relax all the muscles. so you're gonna use the
strap to bring up your legs. so you're really relaxing the muscles. you're not
actively bringing up the leg, you're bringing up the leg with the strap. so
just come up to about halfway you don't have to get to where it's tight, but try
and keep your knee straight because that IT band crosses the knee. so you really
want it to be straight. once you get it a little tight, you're just gonna cross
your body just like this. and you should feel it all the way through. so we can
sometimes people feel it up at the TFL all the way up in their hip. some people
do feel it at the IT band down by the knee, but really just kind of stretching it in
general should get rid of some of that pain and help relieve it a little bit. so
you're just going to hold the stretch for 30 seconds, and then do that three
times total. so while you're lying in this position, I really like then going
ahead and go into the hamstring stretch because your
IT band's kind of right here, coming up and some of your hamstring's on the
outside or just right next to it. so sometimes it might be the hamstrings and
sometimes they're just kind of close enough together that you want a stretch
both. so with the hamstring it's the same concept, you really want to keep that leg
straight. but you want to relax it and use the strap to come all the way up for
the stretch. try and keep that knee straight because those hamstrings cross
that knee joint as well. so if I'm trying to get higher and I start bending my knee,
I'm not really stretching my hamstrings anymore. so come back down until that
knee is straight again and only go as high as you comfortably can with that
knee in that lock down or straight position. and then again holding it for
30 seconds and doing that three times. so then you're gonna come on back down. and
then I would say go into a quad stretch just because again then the quad is kind
of next to that IT band up on top. so you really want to stretch that out as well.
and so there's a bunch of different ways you can stretch that but another easy
way is just to use the strap and roll over onto your stomach.
I would keep stretching this side but I want to stretch the side that's closest
to you, so I'm just gonna kind of switch and then rolling over onto your stomach.
you can do it on your stomach or your side, but a lot of times if you are on
your stomach, it helps keep your hip down. so that's just a nice way to do it. make
sure that you're not stressing out your back. I like to prop up, but if you want
to lie all the way down, make sure and do whatever is most comfortable for you. put
this strap around your shoulder, so you can just kind of pull this way. now if
you're having some tightness and pain in that IT band, it might be very
uncomfortable to pull this far because you're probably gonna have a tight quad
too. so if you're even just here stretching it and you feel that
tightness, that's fine. you don't have to come as far as me. I don't have any
issues right now, so it's not really a problem. but again just go to where it's
slightly uncomfortable but not painful, and where you can hold it for 30 seconds
without making all these faces. so 30 seconds three times.
normally I would have you do all your stretches together, but I'm gonna go
ahead and do some of the exercises while I'm still on the floor, and if you have a
hard time getting up off the floor, you can do all these in your bed or on
a couch. you don't have to do it on the floor if it's really hard for you to get
up and down. so then going into an exercise. a clam shell is really great
too because that works that glute med. that works that TFL area down into the
IT band. so it's really great because a lot of times with the IT band syndrome,
it's muscle imbalance in there, and so you want to get all these working again
so that it's not putting extra stress on that area. so with again with clam
shells or any exercise, I'm going to prop up, but make sure you're comfortable. so
if you want to lie all the way down that's fine, you can do that. the key is
to keep your hips perpendicular to the floor, to the couch, or to the bad,
wherever you are. a lot of times with this people tend to want to roll back when
they lift up, but then you're not working those muscles that you really want to
work. so try and keep it here. you don't have to lift the leg up high, but your
feet are gonna stay together and you're just gonna take that top knee and come
up this way. so if I'm really trying to open up, and I'm rolling back, again
that's really not what you want. you just want to lift it to about there or where
you feel that tightness, and then nice and slow coming back down. clam shells
look pretty easy, and usually the first three or four are
pretty easy, but if you have some issues going on here, sometimes it's a little
struggle to get to ten. so the goal would be 10 to start off with. if you get to
20-25 and it's easy, you can put a little resistive band around your the thighs
and then you can get some resistance with it. but it really depends on what
your injury is, how far you out how far out you are from your injury. so when you
ask about reps, I don't really know that since I can't evaluate you. so you'll
just really have to use your best judgement on that. I would do both sides
if you have time just because if there's an imbalance on one side, your other
side's probably compensating and it needs a little bit of help with that as
well. so then you're going to go into a hip abduction exercise. so with this one,
you can kind of bend the bottom leg, but you still want your whole body to
kind of be in alignment. so I don't want my hips bent like this,
I want them straight like this. same kind of thing, you still want to keep your
hips kind of in that perpendicular area again. if you want to lie all the way
down for comfort that's fine. you want to use that top leg and you want to keep it
straight so I always say if you pull up your toes, that's going to help kind of
lock everything out. now the important part of this one is when you come up for
that hip abduction, you want to turn your foot in so you're leading with your heel,
and you want to go slightly behind you. that's what's going to activate those
muscles there. if you're coming up like this, you're not getting the right
exercise so make sure you turn that heel upwards and go slightly behind you. so
again these might start off feeling kind of easy, but if you've got some issues
going on there, it's gonna be a little bit harder, so don't push through pain. a
little bit of pain a little bit uncomfortable is okay, but if you're
feeling any sharp pain, don't keep doing that. and then same thing, so if you start
off with ten, you're working your way up and it's pretty easy when you get to
20-25 you can add a little ankle weight down there and that should help as well.
so now for some standing stretches. so with the IT Band that TFL, a pretty
easy one to do is take the side that you want to stretch and put it behind the
other foot. as long as you have good balance, that's fine, but if you need
something next to you to hold on to to get into this position, you are kind of
narrowing your basis support, so make sure you're safe doing it. and then once
you have your legs crossed, you're just gonna go down into a stretch this way. so
again you might not be able to go down this this far, especially if you have
some injuries or some irritation and pain in there. so even if you're going to
here that's fine. so again holding that stretch. you want to do that thirty
Seconds. again I would say maybe go ahead and then switch sides and then do it on
that side as well. so you can alternate back and forth the thirty Seconds, three
on each side. if that one's not quite enough of a stretch for you, then you can
kind of do a bigger stretch. I call this the ballerina stretch. I don't really
know what it's called. I feel like I've kind of made
up a little bit along the way, but I'm sure other therapists do it. so again the
side that you want to stretch, you're going to take that foot and put it a
little bit further behind you. so it's not right next to the foot, but it's a
little further out. if you want to roll your foot a little bit you can. sometimes
the just the foot position changes the stretch, so everybody's a little
different. sometimes if you go a little bit further back behind you,
that gives people a different stretch as well. it really just depends on where
that injury is. so once you get in this position, then you're going to take the
hand of the same side and bring it up and over and then put your hand on your
hip, and just kind of push your hip this way while you're leaning over. and so
what this does is just adds a big stretch going all the way up here all
the way down. so it kind of gets your lats, the QL, all of those down into
your TFL, your IT band, and then even down into your peroneals as well. so
this is just kind of a great whole body stretch.
but again holding that for 30 seconds doing 3 on each side. so long as you have
good balance, if not make sure you're you know maybe holding on to a chair. you
could hold on to the chair here and do it that way, but make sure you're safe
while you're doing it. so then the last one is another exercise but again I
would say probably do all the stretches first and then go into the exercises. I
just added this last because it's standing up, so then you want to take a
loop band or just a resistive band and tie it up and then put it around your
feet. so with this one it's kind of like the sidelying one when you're lying down,
but now you're standing up and you're using the band. so with this again it's a
balance thing, so if you want to start off holding on to something like a chair
or a countertop, make sure you do that first, even if you think your balance is
good because I'm gonna try here you might see me wobble a little bit. but
it's the same thing, you want to kind of turn your heel out and then kick out a
little bit behind you. so you don't want to lean over and do this because then
you're just kind of using momentum of your body to do it, but you really want
to try and stabilize this side and kick out and slowly come back in. and so with
this one you really do want to switch sides because I'm stabilizing with this
leg and actively moving this leg, so I'm working
them in different ways. so you really then want to switch. so now I'm
stabilizing this side and then actively moving that side. so it doesn't have to
be a big movement. again I'm just turning my heel out and then kicking out a
little bit that way. so again make sure start off to hold on to something, but
eventually you want to be able to try doing it without holding on, and not
leaning over if possible. so with this one, you might want to start off with a
little bit less. you can do ten if you want to, one to two sets of ten and then
kind of progress from there. oh man so there you have it. those are your
stretches and exercises for IT band syndrome. if you'd like to help support
my channel, find out how about clicking up here, and don't forget to subscribe by
clicking down there. that's right right over there. and remember be safe, have fun,
yeah, and I hope you feel better soon.