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!

01/31/2015 at 6:03 pm #75740
AvatarPawan Lalwani
Participant

Jake, you didn’t mention whether you’ve seen a good PT.  Not all are created equal, so make sure you research and try to find one that will try to come up with a diagnosis and treat the cause of your imbalances vs just treating the local issues.  Sounds like you have a lot of layers to peel back and try to fix. 


I’m definitely not a PT, so I don’t want to give you the wrong advice, but if your glutes aren’t firing at all then that might be a first step, working on isometric holds doing a clamshel, and getting those glutes to fire.  You’ll want to progress very slowly.  If certain tissues are tight you should try to work on mobility of those tissues.  The nice thing about a PT is that they should be able to help you peel back the layers to try to find the underlying cause.  For myself, I had a bunch of different issues that were probably contributing to my tight lateral quads, it band, and resulting knee pain.  I believe it was a back issue that was keeping those structures tight, but there were areas that I needed to work on, like strengthening my glute med, hamstrings, and just my posterior chain in general.  Find what movements cause pain and what movements help, this can lead you in the right direction.