THE BEST ITB STRETCHES IN THE BUSINESS

Hey RMA crew!

It has been another big week! Congrats to Ana Croger and all of those who did the New York Marathon the other week and also to your very own Nicole Bunyon on her 3^rd at Carcour 60k!

We went through ITB stretching recently and I was talking about thinking of your knee issues as part of the mechanics of the whole area. So from a tight ITB perspective you are being aware of the muscles and tissue on the outside of the thigh, as well as below into your calf and foot and also above, with lower back and even further up into your torso.

So if you want to stretch that area, what is the BEST stretch to look at?

This can get pretty technical. If you think ITB and the lines of fascia (kind of like glad wrap around the muscles) you want to think of lengthening the muscles on the front and outside of the calf (tibialis anterior and peroneus longus… don’t stress about the crazy names). You also want to target the muscle above the ITB, a long thin one called TFL and then gluteus medius slightly behind that.

So to do that BEST you need a combination of positions, toes up and turned in to get the outside calf, hip in extension (straight back) and thigh rotated out. Keep your back straight (avoid arching) so you can keep the stretch targeted through ITB. You can do it lying on your back on a bench.

That is a textbook correct ITB stretch, I like it but I also feel it doesn’t get a heap of leverage. I also do another one that picks up the ITB as well your glutes. Some people would say that gluteals don’t need to be lengthened but we’re talking about your entire system, through your legs, ITB gluteals and even up to your torso.

This is key to being injury free.

So I like to do an extra stretch with leg bent up on a bench, and leaning in. With this one I bias the stretch through my ITB, then glutes which is just another section of this fascial trail (your glad wrap). You will get the good stretch feeeels with this one and we see this work really well in the clinic.

We will get into more detail on targeting your glutes with the ITB next time. (Cheers to one of BL’s runners, Jo Wedlock for getting me started on this!)

Remember if you have any injuries, check with your health support crew before getting started.

Enjoy your trails everyone! Make good choices / behave yourselves / don’t do anything I wouldn’t do… And don’t forget to tag us in your photos!

Paul Trevethan

Physio

Running Expert