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!

#76271
AvatarPawan Lalwani
Participant

I’ve had some luck managing my symptoms, but haven’t gotten to the root cause. Main things I do to manage the tightness are mckenzie pressups, foam rolling lumbar and thoracic spine, releasing the psoas on my affected side, and dry needling the lateral quad. I’ve put a lot of work into my core, glutes, and hamstrings with limited results. Seems like some movements cause tightness while others help, I need to focus on what helps going forward. Wondering if I need to do more single leg exercises as I think this is mostly stemming from a muscle imbalance that I continue to perpetuate.

Right now it feels like the psoas on my affected/tight side is getting overworked. I mostly notice it after completing an activity but sometimes during. It presents as a tight it band/lateral retinaculum and causes some lateral knee pain. I’m into endurance sports that involve lots of knee flexion, cycling and ski touring. I also feel like the glute on the affected side isn’t firing like it should because of the dysfunction so I’ve been trying to concentrate on it as well. Haven’t seen my PT in quite sometime as I wasn’t seeing results and it’s expensive, but might go back to have him check my leg length as I previously had a functionally shorter leg on my affected side.

Just started incorporating some more upper body work like horizontal rows and scap push ups to see if it’s something further up the chain that might be contributing to a movement pattern affecting my gait. The activities I participate in push you for a couple hours on end, I feel as though as I start getting tired my form suffers causing other muscles to take over that shouldn’t.