Originally Posted by
AristoNYC
I thought tightness of the it band pulls the knee & hip out of place, are you saying its opposite?
I am no doctor so I could be wrong. I believe the foam rolling stretches & breaks up scar tissue reducing the "pull" on the outside of the knee & hip
No. The IT band is this great thick thing.
AFAIK it doesn't get either shorter or longer, except through surgery. ITBS is actually the inflammation of the bursa underlying the ITB at the knee joint. There's no scar tissue. The roller deflates the bursa. I have used The Stick for that. Bought the travel version and took it on our tour, but didn't need it.
IME the best thing for cyclists is to improve the flexibility of the entire knee joint and take ibuprofen, 600mg 3 X day until pain is gone. That's always worked for me in a couple of weeks. In unresponsive cases, a doctor can inject cortisone into the bursa to deflate it.
There are also complicated courses of PT discussed here and there, trying to get a relatively unused muscle to fire or to fire at the right moment. These treatments seem to be directed at runners. I haven't needed to do that, maybe because I do weights almost year-round. Which is not a bad idea. In any case, my PT friend recommended those stretches. Her suggestions have always worked for me.
I also get pes anserine bursitis, which is on the inside of the knee. Again, stretching fixes it.