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My left leg has been becoming progressively worse and worse over the past few years, to the extent that I had steroid injections into my hip and knee last week. Today I have had a pain free day spent digging the garden and generally doing practical stuff that had previously been painfully intimidating and so had been avoided. I had wanted to ride but I figured that more important tasks needed to come first. I might grab a quick spin in the morning though before the drive up to take Boy#2 back to University in Aberystwyth. Up until now long drives have been pretty uncomfortable- here's hoping that this will not be.
Enough rambling... has anyone got any advice/ experience?
I had issues when I was training for Ironman. Didn't affect me when cycling, though - only running.
Got to the point where it would flare up after about 1 mile. I tried everything - rollering, special straps, etc. In the end, changed my running style to forefoot striking, ran through the pain for a bit and it went away.
JP
Had it training for marathon but think I caught it early. For me, an ITB strap did make a big difference, although I did find it a struggle keeping the step in right place.
I admire you priorities. My garden is in sh!t and the veg patch really does need some attention, the purple sprouting broccoli is in a state, but i am off riding with son #1 tomorrow....the digging can wait. I understand this is of no help to you though, just thought i would share.
I have spent four years of physio, accupuncture, more physio, exercise, painkillers at increasingly higher dosages. I hope these injections do their stuff.
Up until a year ago, I had very bad hip pain that was starting to also affect my knee. Tight ITB. Was in agony do days after running. Cycling wasn't much better.
I found doing hip stretches a few years a day made a HUGE difference. Pain went away after a few weeks of doing the stretching. Now I just do them immediately before and after a ride just to make sure.
It's the first stretch in the below linked video. I doing do the moving through the whole range of motion. I just hold at the extreme for 30 seconds. 3 times on each side.
This also fixed my knee pain on the other leg.
youtu.be/Ie5SW9mqmuk
Or this link. Sorry, can't get links to work!!
hasfit.com/workouts/rehabilitation/hip-stretches/
I had ITB issues a while back causing a painful knee.
Had a (painful) ITB massage by my physio, using her elbow!
Followed by a few weeks of Foam rolling.
All sorted.
I have found that as I get older, 54 now, I need to do plenty of stretching and rolling just to keep supple and keep the niggles away.
I had knee and toe(!) Pain when cycling. Sports massage therapist went deep somewhere round my hip/groin and told me it was going to hurt like a bastard, they weren't wrong.
2 days later with some stretching and I've not had a flare up since.
If it's your left leg, how much driving do you do? Could you switch to an auto for a bit and see if that helps? My wife used to get a lot of hip pain from driving the old car - the position of the clutch pedal and her seat position just put a lot of tension in those muscles.
When I had ITB issues, my physio said the IT band was like the climbing ropes you used to get in school gyms - nothing was going to chang it's shape or size and that what was needed was correction of the muscle connected to it.
Some MF release work in the glutes and some activation and strengthening exercises and it has been fine since.
I've been unable to run for around 2 decades because of IT band pain.
I started doing weekly yoga at work a couple of years ago and in late August I did a run (back from the garage because walking is boring) and had no IT band pain, although I could feel it was a bit twangy.
Since then I've been running fairly regularly and trying to do daily hip stretches.
If you look online for IT band stretches or running yoga sessions there is plenty on there.
The main ones I do are pigeon pose and a variation of cow pose.
Basically lie on your back, knees bent and feet on the floor. To stretch your left side, put your left ankle across your right knee and let your left leg open outwards. You then bring your right knee towards you (right foot off the ground), bringing the left ankle with it.
If you can reach, clasp your hands behind your right knee to help with pulling it towards you.
I also do various hip openers.
It's not yet perfect, but it's definitely getting there. I have to do them daily. In December I didn't really find time to do them and I really noticed it tightening up.
I think there's some kind of underlying bio-mechanical wonkiness....
What Onzadog said re exercises.
I used to have big problems, turned out it was my feet. Now use custom insoles and see a podiatrist every couple of years to get checked. That, along with regular stretching and some activation exercises (glutes being the usual culprit) have solved it.
From my experience Tight ITB was a symptom so you need to review what’s causing it as well as work to relax the ITB. I’d suggest first stop is to get your feet checked!
As mentioned before: stretching!
Many, many good youtube videos.
In my case (hip): biggest effect had pressure onto the painful spot. Hurts. But relaxes the area.
I used this low cost thing:
fascia roller
Rolled with my whole body weight, on side of the hip, over this simple thing. 2 times a day, less than a minute!
Painful the first couple times.
Additional to that some stretching. But the pressure thing helped more in my case.
I kind of stumbled across this thread and book marked it ... can anybody tell me more about this, what it is, and what causes it.
Is it a problem in the knee that may manifests itself there or a problem that stems from the hip?
I have googled it and most of the results are about exercise / treatment more than what its is, what causes it and what the symptoms actually are and sometimes you can relate more to people that actually have the issue than someone that's trying to promote some miracle cure that costs you loads to sign up to.
Any help really would be appreciated!!
My understanding of it is this...
Your IT band is a tendony thing that is attached to a large muscle on the outside of your hip and travels down the outside of your thigh to attach below the knee joint. If you prod your leg, you'll probably feel it.
IT band syndrome refers to a pain on the outside of your knee kind of adjacent to and a bit below the kneecap. The cause of this pain is the IT band rubbing across bits and pieces in your knee and causing inflammation.
In my case, I have really tight hips and I think it is the muscular tightness in my hips, causing my IT band to be 'tight' and causing irritation in my knee.
I have recently started doing daily stretches to try and release my hips and stop this from occurring, but as soon as I stop stretching the problem worsens, so I think there is an underlying cause to the tightness in my hips.
I am debating seeing someone who can do some kind of biomechanical analysis and work out what's going on.
I have seen numerous physios over the years who have all suggested different causes, but nothing that have suggested has rectified it. Normally it gets put down to muscular weakness in hamstrings and hips, but having previously done tons of strengthening work in that area and seen no improvement (even though there is a marked improvement in muscular strength) I am not convinced.
I only really get a problem when running. I can ride long distances over several days and have no issue, but a 10km run is currently about my limit...
stumpy01
Thank you for the response I genuinely appreciate!!!
It sounds like it's more of a knee orientated problem and mine is much more hip orientated (it's been replaced a few years ago).
Fingers crossed I think I overdid it a while ago and maybe what I have is tendinitis and I just need to take a bit of time out to recover which is hard when it's something you love.
Cheers again for your help!!