Bilateral IT Band pain

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

I’ve been having bilateral IT band pain for the past 6 months. It occurs when I’m squatting and sometimes when I’m driving long distances. Reducing the weight on my squats significantly helps the pain, but whenever I gradually work back up, they start to hurt again.

Any advice on dealing with this?

2

Hey @Asutton sounds like you are on the right path with adjusting loading tolerance. May just require more time managing loading to the area and being patient with embracing the process. Regarding sitting for long periods of time - this is common once symptomatic in an area. Our usual recommendations are to change position preemptively once you find a threshold of tolerance; with driving this could simply be flexing and extending the knee if possible or planning breaks where you can briefly walk around.

3

Thanks for the advice. In regards to managing load, how should I go about doing this? From my understanding, I need to back off the weight to desensitize the area, but how do I know when to increase the load without irritating the tissue further? Is it something that I need to figure out with trial and error or is there a general guideline to approaching this?

4

Here’s a video that should help guide the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwj5ORPmX0

Typically you can:

  • Decrease RPE which theoretically should decrease external loading (weight lifted)
  • Increase rep range to further regulate external loading
  • Add in tempo to further regulate external loading
  • Alter range of motion
  • Change exercise selection

If you need further individualized guidance, we’d be happy to consult with you: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F…ilUWA/viewform