Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett Forums General Chronic IT band/quad TIGHTNESS and knee pain (chondromalacia patella?) for 6 years! Re: Chronic IT band/quad TIGHTNESS and knee pain (chondromalacia patella?) for 6 years!

#75465
AvatarPawan Lalwani
Participant

Was wondering how you were doing Kefu, glad to hear you’ve made some progress!  I’ve had my ups and downs, work has been crazy lately which hasn’t allowed me to get out and ride much.  Seems like sitting around makes things worse, so I’ve tried to stay active just taking my dog for a walk, going on short hikes, etc. A month ago I started back with my PT and right away asked him to check my pelvis. Appeared that on my affected side my si joint was “stuck”. He did a chiropractic adjustment and pushed that side down, which clunked back into place. A day later I was getting up off the couch and heard the other side clunk, it was out again.  Followed up my PT appt with another bike fit, this time with slow motion cameras and stick on sensors that measure angles between two different poimts. Most telling thing we saw was that on my affected side(tight it band, lateral knee pain) my so joint wasn’t moving freely like the other side. One side was moving 3.5 degrees up/down other side was moving less than 1 degree during my pedal stroke. Took that feedback and started hitting the core exercises, didn’t seem to help.  Went back and he did another full evaluation, re-adjusted my pelvis back to nuetral. We noticed that on my affected side my vmo was firing late and was much smaller than my other side.  He also continued to state that even though my glutes were relatively strong, they were weak compared to other muscles, quads, hamstrings, mostly.  I’ve only recently strengthened my hamstrings, they were weak as hell when I first started training them 4-5 months ago.  I started with some double leg squats with a band around my knees and have progressed to single leg squats, with a band around the inside of my knee pulling it laterally.  I think these are helping me the most as of late.  I feel like I can get my vmo firing and my knee feels more stable, I’m sure it’s helping my glutes as well.  I’ve gone on a couple quick rides and the tightness hasn’t come back like it has most other times.  I’ve also been massaging my psoas, iliacus, and ql which all seem to help.  I’m optimistic if I keep on my regimen of single leg squats, one legged rdls, hamstring curls, and core work that I’ll get back to 100%.  

Good luck Kefu, keep posting updates and don’t give up no matter how many setbacks you have.  I know how hard it is to go from being a semi-elite athlete to not even being able to go for a walk, crushes you.  But something is creating all this pain/tightness, just need to try every avenue and figure out what the right fixes are to put you back together.