Walt Reynolds' ITB Special is an exercise that mimics the running gait and strengthens the iliotibial band. I found the original instructions a bit difficult to follow, so I've taken the liberty of adding a few photos to illustrate.
First, find a four to six inch elevation.
Place the involved leg, i.e. the leg you are working out, on the step. Use a wall or railing on your non-involved side for support.
With both knees locked, lower your non-involved leg towards the floor. As you do this, your involved hip would be higher than the non-involved hip. (see pic below) Try to shift most of your body weight to the inside part of the foot of the involved leg. Make sure that a fair amount of your body weight is directed through your heel, not just your toes.
Bend your weight-supporting, involved knee slightly (about 10 to 20 degrees), but keep the non-involved foot off the ground or floor.
Now, move the involved hip forward about four to six inches, while keeping the involved heel in contact with the step and your weight on the inside of your involved foot. As your involved hip moves forward, your upper body should move backward.
After you've moved your hip forward, move it straight backward. As your hip moves backward, your upper body will tend to bend forward.
As you do the exercise, you should feel the burn up toward the side of your hip. If you don't feel anything happening, go back to the basic position and try again. Make sure that
1. Your involved hip is higher than the other hip
2. Your weight is shifted to the inside of the involved foot.
Start with 10 reps per day on each leg, and gradually build up to a set of 20 to 30 reps - carried out at two different times during the day.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Walt Reynolds' ITB Special
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16 comments:
This is soooo helpful, thanks!!
Caroline, you're most welcome. :) I spoke to one of my friends who has a degree in health and fitness and he taught me another exercise to strengthen the ITB. I call it the kungfu stance.
I hope your ITB gets better soon!
Thank you for the pictures -- that is extremely helpful.
You're welcome Michael. :) I actually went to the sports doc and asked her about the Walt Reynolds ITB Special, but she said she couldn't comment on it as they have not tested it out. So I'm not sure if the Walt Reynolds actually comes with any doctor's recommendations.
Thanks very much for the pics!
I found a website that gave a written descript. of the exercise but your pictures were a huge help.
I had IT problems last year training for a half and was disheartened today to feel the same pain after doing some hill training in prep for Chicago this summer.
Hope this helps!!
Fantastic. I have just tried the stretches without the picture and obviously wrongly!!!
Thanks for spending your time doing this
Have you ever thought of doing a vid of this?
Thanks for the pictures, I couldnt quite grasp the moving the hips forward and backwards bit from the article.
Oh my god you are a lifesaver. Thanks alot!!!!
Thanks for the pictures! I was reading about this stretch and was like whaaaat? ITBS put me off my feet for a weekend, it can be pretty painful, and hard to prevent. This stretch works that area perfectly.
Thanks for taking the time to post the pictures of this exercise- it is really helpful and simplifies the original article.
I'm trying to prevent another ITB syndrome episodes so I looked around for some strengthening exercises. The Walt Reynolds special came up on a website that had a much better description of ITB problems than other sites, so I decided to give this a try. However, I find the exercise so complex that I feel it could do damage since it's highly likely people attempting this are doing it wrong. I have no idea if I'm even doing it right. I feel a lot of pressure on my involved knee. The pictures are helpful, but I think a video would be more informative. Is there an easier exercise that achieves the same benefits?
Thanks for the pics I tried it and felt it right away I hope it helps I have flare ups at around mile 5 and I wanna go further some days I can and some I cant So I hope this helps!!
pumpinair
Looks as if you are twisting your hips, Walt's description tends to describe a rotational component in the frontal plane, like he describes, "pelvis should act like a bowl, with forward movement bringing the bottom of the bowl forward and tipping the rim of the bowl out the back", so I think it is like you are doing a pelvic thrust back and forth, right? Kind of like Beyonce-dancing...
Thanks for posting the pictures! This really helps to clarify the exercise.
Thank you, you're right the instructions without a picture are not sufficiently clear, for example the one in www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/0168-knee-injuries.htm but there are good tips worth reading.
Thank you!
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