I am in I.T. Band Hell

     Those of you that have suffered from I.T. Band syndrome know exactly what I mean when I say I am in I.T. band hell.  Just when I think things are on the up and up, I have a set back and it throws me into a depressed state.  

     

     I know that I have to get all my muscles around my IT band stronger and stretch the ITB out in order to win this battle, but there are so many opinions and routines I haven't been able to settle on just one.  I was trying a hodgepodge of different things and I don't think I was really making any head way so I decided I needed to settle on just one.  I finally settled on a stretching and strengthening program from a guy on YouTube that suffered from ITB issues and put up a video of his routine that solved his problems, so for the past couple of days I have been trying to follow it.  Basically I perform side leg lifts and holds, single leg raises and holds, a leg lift with a horizontal swing out, mini single leg dips, a cross leg IT band stretch and a bent knee IT band stretch.  I am going to give this routine about two weeks and see if it is making any improvement to my situation.  I don't really want to get into promoting it if it doesn't work so until I get a couple of weeks in and see how I am doing before I give out all the details.

     

     I read about a compression strap that can help with ITBS, and it has helped me so far, at least on short runs, is the Pro Tech IT Band Compression Wrap.  The wrap is made up of mostly neoprene and has two velcro attaching points.  It has a small square of padding that when wrapped and compressed to the leg will isolate the IT band and keep it from moving across the knee and becoming irritated.  I have used it on three runs so far and has worked wonderfully until today's run.  The first two runs were 4 milers and I had no issues, today's was 6 miles and once I hit mile five the pain slowly came back and I had to shut it down at mile six.  This product seems to work, at least for me in short mileage situations so far.  I will keep using it and give a follow up review after a few more runs.  I picked it up online for around $25 bucks (including shipping).

And no that's not my leg :)

  
     I am not ready to give my full review and full endorsement of my new Altra Paradigms, but after almost 12 miles I am loving them.  The wide toe box is AWESOME!  It gives my feet room to breathe and the zero drop platform allows me to feel like I am running on my feet not on my shoes, if that makes any sense.

     After I uploaded my run info from my Garmin I noticed another reason why I keep having these set backs with my injury and it boils down to me over doing it.  I took a week off from doing any running and the next week back I did over 17 miles.  The last six weeks have been back and forth like that and that cannot be a recipe for success.  I think I will take this next week completely off followed by the next three weeks of 5, 8 and 11 total miles.  Hopefully with the slow easy build up and the stretch and strengthening routine I can kick this crap and get back to enjoying my runs.