Preventive Medicine: IT Band Syndrome

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I am not a medical professional, nor do I have any particular medical training or expertise.  I am about to dispense some advice about running and health which is based entirely on my OPINIONS, formed from two years of my own anecdotal experience, talking with other runners, and absorbing information from the broader running community via blogs, podcasts, and other readings.  I've synthesized it all at the meta- level into my own perspectives, and you should do the same!  So this is what I think, for whatever it may be worth to you!

Many runners push themselves very hard.  I've been extremely guilty of that myself from time to time.  I think it's correlated with some of the personality traits that draw people to running - results, success, gravitation toward quantifiable improvement.  We push because we want to get better, because we want to nail a particular race.  What we all sometimes forget is that nothing will derail progress more significantly than an injury - particularly an injury that keeps you from performing at peak (or at all) for weeks or months at a time.

So, I think there's a lot to be said for building up speed and endurance gradually, and incorporating plentiful rest into your annual training cycle.

Likewise, I think there's A LOT to be said for conditioning of other muscles besides those you can obviously identify with running - i.e. besides your quads and calves.  I'm a big believer in the idea of integrated fitness, which is to say your running is influenced by a lot more than the amount of zip you've got in your legs and feet.

And I think that so-called Runner's Knee is a perfect example of this.

Look down at your knee: touch the lateral (farther from the center of your body) side; as you move your hand toward the back of the knee, you'll feel a tight band of tissue.  This is your ilio-tibial band, otherwise known as the IT Band.  It connects the iliac crest on your pelvis to the tibia in your lower leg, and it's essential for the part of running where you bend at the knee.  If you get the variation of Runner's Knee where you feel heat and eventually pain on the outside of your knee, chances are it's caused by your IT Band continuously rubbing against the bony protrusions by your knee joint.

image taken from http://saveyourself.ca/articles/diagnose-runners-knee.php

So they call this IT Band Syndrome.  It haunts many runners, and it's notoriously difficult to shake off.

However, I believe it's also highly preventable. Conventional understanding is that IT Band Syndrome is caused or exacerbated by poor stride motion, where your knees collapse inward as you run, rather than staying in the plane of your forward motion.  Racking up miles, taking 1700-1800 steps per mile, you cause a lot of stress on those IT Bands with that poor form, eventually shortening the tissues and making increased friction inevitable whenever you run (or even walk).

So the key to heading off IT Band Syndrome is correcting your stride.  You can try to do this with your mind, but I doubt that you can brain it out for miles at a time.  What you really need to do is strength and condition your hips and glutes, because it's these support muscle groups that keep your legs in the proper plane of motion while you run.

I've recently started doing a good bit of hip/glute conditioning along with my other strength training, and I'd highly recommend it to all runners, especially if you ever feel a little niggle on the outside of your knee.  My favorite workout is from Strength Running : check it out!  They're calling this an IT Band Syndrome rehab, but why not get ahead of the beast, rather than waiting for it to bite you?