Cross Country IT Band Injury

This is what you do: run with your hands on your outside hip flexors so that you can feel what part of the stride they are flexed. You will notice that you are slightly using your outside hip flexors to pull your leg outwards AFTER you have landed, putting tremendous stress on the IT band. Keep feeling and adjusting until you can make this stop happening. Also look over at your knee when that leg lands and notice that it may be buckling (the knee angle shrinks for a split second) when impact happens. Fix this so that no buckling occurs. Finally, use KT tape, because for this injury, the stuff just works.

My mom has noticed that my knee did buckle slightly when I run, especially when I was hurting during a run. I will definitely try to correct that when I get back into running. I've used KT tape before, and it works wonders. Thank you so much! (:

Jjjjjjttt wrote:

This is what you do: run with your hands on your outside hip flexors so that you can feel what part of the stride they are flexed. You will notice that you are slightly using your outside hip flexors to pull your leg outwards AFTER you have landed, putting tremendous stress on the IT band. Keep feeling and adjusting until you can make this stop happening. Also look over at your knee when that leg lands and notice that it may be buckling (the knee angle shrinks for a split second) when impact happens. Fix this so that no buckling occurs. Finally, use KT tape, because for this injury, the stuff just works.

try arnica cream, icing, and rolling. I'm not sure on the rolling part though.

Mackenzie ignore those silly solutions.

Continue with the therapy ad four sessions is very little. The bad news is that your doctors recommendation of 4 weeks off is very likely not going to be enough. I have a top ranked 16 yr old girl XC runner who ignored my advice of taking 2 months off and the problem has persisted now for 9 months and like you it has also developed into knee pain.

Red rest and more rest is what is needed plus physio and stretching.

If you ignore the advice the problem will persist and become chronic.

You also need to determine why the injury occurred. Too much mileage? Poor stretching? Running on pavement?

You must always keep a training log.

Good luck.

I had the same exact problems, so hearing about your IT band problems really hits home for me. My knees seemed to knock when I ran and I had IT band problems to the point where walking up and down stairs hurt. It was very frustrating and borderline depressing because the harder I trained, the more I got hurt just from giving more effort. My problem was that I had flat feet that I was unaware of. Do you have flat feet? If you do, you should go see a podiatrist ASAP and get a pair of custom orthotics made. Getting orthotics helped me tremendously.

I should have mentioned the knee bend first because if you fix that, the hip flexors will usually be fixed as well. When you run, look way over your side so you can get a clear view of your knee, and you may have to do your hip drive before ground contact a little faster to get your legs under you with some power to stop the buckling. Remember that the KT tape will stop the pain and allow you to run, but it won't solve the actual problem.

My experience with IT band issues foam rolling is the best. Every time i have had this issue with an athlete i have had them foam roll before and after runs and if they stick with it in a week or two it has gone away. Once this happens i have them do it a few days a week usually on hard workout days or race days.