About me : I have been working out more or less continuously for close to 2 years, and may be called an recent intermediate trainee. I squat close to 1.5 times my bodyweight, reaching my bodyweight in Bench press and powerclean. Dint quite measure up conventional deadlift lately.
The problem : I have ITBS on my right leg on the outer side of the knee. How do I know it — I had it on my left leg late July. Took about 2 months off from lower body work ( actually did not work out at all for a lot of days)
Did a lot of stretches and other rehab work, and I was back to squatting my previous max by early October.
The condition I have now is exactly the same as I had before, so hopefully I can get out of the injury soon.
The question : While squats and conventional deadlifts are out of question, can I still train my glutes and hams with hip thrusts, DB RDLs( where DB stays above the knees), good mornings etc ? I did not feel the stiffness or the pain when I tried these movements, but is it advisable to still keep doing them ?
My posterior chain anyway needs work, and I am not particularly fond of working only upper body for 2 months.
^^^ Thanks.
I however could not get out of my left leg ITBS with foam rolling for a week.
My rehab work included stretching 3 times a day ( I have a desk job so, couldnt manage more turns at stretching), and foam rolling once a day, which I did for close to 20 days before starting to work out.
I did not rest my leg much then though, because I had some really important personal activity then.
The same case now too; I just cant afford immobility, have some personal errands to run for, and cant afford to take extended rest.
Anytime I have seen IT band friction syndrome it’s been an overuse injury in endurance athletes such as marathon runners or road biking, where there is a high amount of knee flexion and extension. So my question to you is this… are you doing either of those for cardio? Since this is a chronic case and bilateral, it is possible you could be out of alignment in your hips all the way to your feet. If it is simply from squats and deads, you’re just one of the unlucky ones.
Your doctor could prescribe an NSAID or iontophoresis to help help with the pain. If you have good enough insurance try to get some physical therapy done at a clinic that can uses the Graston Technique. I have seen GT used for a number of chronic injuries (ITBS, Achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis) and they have had good results. A PT will have to do a full eval to find the root of your problem, they can use a number of treatments including manual therapy, ultrasound, ionto, and GT. In the meantime you can try stretching the opposite side lat and obliques as well as foam rolling the glutes and peroneals. I think you are on the right track for workouts since you limited the knee flex/ext.
^^^ Thanks for the reply and advice. Appreciate it.
But I guess I know why I got it.
I have only myself to blame.
I am not one of those ‘made for squats/deads’ kinda guy, but I am okay with both.
Worked on my form for months before I started training really heavy, and I guess my form is pretty alright.
What is not alright is the place where I train. They used to close after morning session at 11 am in the morning and I used to train from around 915 to 11.
I used to take 30 mins for warmup and dynamic stretching and 15=20 mins post workout for static stretching sessions.
With the holiday season, they started closing down around 10-1015, and my warmup and stretching suffered. I fight with them everyday these days for five mins more.
I guess I had to see it coming.
The one I had on my left leg a few months back was I guess due to a wrong programming and inadequate warm up and stretching of the posterior chain and IT band. I never stretched my ITB before I had that.
I also had patellar tendonitis too in the beginning of this year. That was also because of some problems in my program.
I have since incorporated stretches and warmups and had been religiously doing them. I have to say the injuries I had before were not severe and disappeared with a months time.
Hope I get it around this time too.
Sort of falling, getting up and walking forward, I guess is the way my training is going right now.
I did see a physiotherapist for ITBS before, and he suggested the right stretches.
I would pay a visit again.
However, I have to say, we dont have good experts in sports specific injuries around this part of the world. 9 out of 10 docs/PTs have only one sentence – stop working out and try out walking for exercise.
Forgot to answer your question about cardio. No, I dont do much of running or biking. I dont do much cardio anyway.
Plus I really do not have much pain for normal day to day activities. Its just when I squat down below parallel that I really get it. Can feel the swelling around the area, just like last timw when I had it. The swelling disappeared after a week last time, but the stiffness remained for close to a month.