PERMANENT Fix for IT Band Pain!!

If you have IT Band Syndrome or pain on the outside of your knee or thigh, then you know how debilitating it can be to your running, biking and lifting. In this video, I’m going to show you a permanent fix for your IT band that is not going to involve a single bit of foam rolling. That’s right. All

JEFF: What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. Today I want to help you get rid of IT band problems and pain forever. Not just for a short period of time.

I’m talking about for the rest of your life. It’s possible. If we go at the real root cause of what the problem is. So, I really don’t need an introduction to IT band syndrome because if you have it, you know it. You’ve been Googling it; you’ve been finding out.

It’s when you get that pain on the outside of the knee. That can run all the way up the side of your leg. I conveniently wear these pants just for this video. I never wear these pants, ever before. You get a chance to see the IT band in action.

Following those stripes. You guys know that was sarcastic, right? The following the stripes here of the knee, all the way up to the hip. If you get any kind of pain, especially when you press out there, or when you’re foam rolling – you’re not foam rolling, right? Because for this problem, foam rolling is banned.

You’re not allowed to foam roll this because all you’re going to do – I made a whole video about this before. You can see some of it here. Foam rolling is just making this worse. You’re enflaming an already enflamed tissue. You’re picking on a tissue that had nothing to do with this in the first place.

You need to get to the root cause. What I did in that video, if you haven’t seen it, I showed you how to attack a muscle called the TFL. Which is right here. You can see this TFL feeds down into that IT band. The IT band itself is just a tendinous structure.

It’s just being impacted by the muscles that we can have an influence over, that attach into it. And it’s not just the TFL, but this one over here, too. That is the glute medias. You can see how they feed into the white portion here – the tendon structure, which is the IT band. We know if we can go after this, we can start to relieve some of the tension that’s being placed here, down at the knee, and along the whole band itself.

We know if this muscle up here is tight and pulling, if it’s attached somewhere else, we’re going to get tension down there, too. Up here we’re pulling, and down here where it’s attached. So, we can influence that. That whole video is a must watch, if you haven’t watched it, on the right way to change the composition of the muscle that’s up here and overactive. But we want to get to the root cause of what’s happening here, to permanently make sure this goes away forever.

You have to understand, this other muscle is really what’s happening. This is the problem. Both of them feed down, in. One feeds down here vertically, if you follow the fibers. That’s what we always talk about.

Then the glute medias is feeding into it this way at a different orientation. If you look at the combined effect of these muscles and the tension that they can apply to this common band, we need to have contributions from both. We need to stop this from being so overactive and get this to stop being so underactive because that will guarantee your glute medias is incredibly weak. I made a whole video about it being the weakest muscle in every person’s body. I’m going to give you a couple tests in this video to show you that you can determine your own strength there – mostly weakness – and then a couple of things to do to really fix it very quickly.

For the sake of why we’re doing this, when this is weak and unopposed, you allow this downward force to dominate. So, all this force from this muscle here that tightens, is pulling straight up on here, which is going to cause the most pain and discomfort down here along the whole band. If we can offset some of that by having more of this counterbalance from behind, we’re going to disperse those forces, taking all the strain off the IT band itself, and get this thing going forever. I’m going to bring Jesse in at this point to test those weak-ass – I guess ‘ass’, really – glute medias of his and show you guys how to test yours, and then give you those exact drills, and a couple of maintenance stretches to do to make sure it never comes back again. Now we’re- JESSE: Whoa.

Aren’t you going to introduce me? JEFF: You need an introduction after all this time? JESSE: I mean, I think it would be nice if you introduced me anytime I come on this whole deal. JEFF: How about, I let you do it when we edit the video? JESSE: All right.

That’s fair. JEFF: All right. Can I proceed? JESSE: Please. JEFF: Thanks.

All right, guys. Back to what I was saying. Now, with Jesse on the ground here, I want to show you a test that you can do for yourself that will likely reveal a humongous weakness in this glute medias. This is what’s causing – remember, the root cause of your TFL problems are not anywhere here and down here. They’re way up here in the hip, and on the back side because we’re not getting that counterbalance.

Here’s what you do. Jesse, lie on your side. So, what I want you guys to do is stack your hips. Make sure you’re not rolled back one over here, or one too far forward. You stack one, right on top of each other.

The legs are stacked on top of each other. Now, you’re going to lift this leg up into adduction, which is toward the sky. You’re going to do so with the hip backward from that midline. So, you’re not just lifting straight up off that other knee. It’s up, and then back, and you’re leaving it right here.

Do you feel that right here? JESSE: Yeah. JEFF: You should be able to feel it right here, in this spot. Right on the back side in that glute medias. Hold it there.

I let go and he already started dropping because he doesn’t really have that strength. But there are two tests to do here. If you have somebody nearby, the first thing they can do is stabilize right here and just push to see how much resistance you can take, if you really can’t take much. Or you just try to hold it there. I want to see if you can hold it for 60 seconds.

How you doin’? JESSE: It hurts. JEFF: It hurts? Do you think you’re going to make it? JESSE: No.

JEFF: So, this is a very easy drill here. You’re just lifting and holding, but a lot of you won’t be able to do that and hold it for 60 seconds. Or you certainly won’t have the strength to be able to withstand any kind of downward force. JESSE: Right. JEFF: The next thing we want to do is try to strengthen that.

So, how do we do it? JESSE: You tell them. JEFF: The same way we just did it. The same thing becomes an exercise. It’s so simple.

It’s not remedial. I’ve mentioned it before, the “Jane Fonda” exercise, side leg lift. This is incredibly helpful here. This helps with low back pain as well, to prevent that from coming back. So, get back into position, stack everything, and now you have to go slow and deliberate.

So, make sure you go straight down to the ground. Flat down. All right. There you go. Now what you want to do is lift straight up, slow, control it, squeeze through here, bring it back at the same time.

That’s where you’re going to start and end, okay? You’re going straight down, and then up, and back. Right there. Squeeze it. Is that – right.

Okay, go down. And up. Right there. And squeeze it. So, every one deliberate, every one squeezed, every one with a purpose.

I’m telling you; you’ll be lucky if you get 10 or 12 good repetitions here. But it showcases just how weak this muscle is. Once you start to finally address it, you’re going to be amazed at how much more effective it is for getting rid of this pain. A couple of other things. Number one: things to watch out for.

As you lift it up, don’t lift up and start bringing it in front of the body. That’s a substitution. Instead of being back here at ext