After my limping finish at Tupper Lake, I realized I had a problem on my hands by way of a extremely aggravated ITB band, on both legs. It seemed when looking up the issue on google, the solution is really rest and stretching. In particular I incorporated these stretches
Cross injured leg over the uninjured side and pull the leg as close to your chest as possible.
Cross injured leg behind and lean towards the uninjured side. This stretch is best performed with arms over the head, creating a "bow" from ankle to hand on the injured side (unlike how it is depicted).
Pull foot up to back of buttocks. Cross the uninjured leg over the injured leg and push down, hold for 30 seconds.
This helped. But I really did not start to feel a difference until I incorprated a Yoga pose called the Pigeon pose.
I have to say this really has made a huge difference so far. I believe for me at least, that the pose helps because it is incorporating the use of gravity, to help stretch the muscles. There is little balance involved or even effort. The only effort is in keeping myself from leaning too far into it.
I am starting to think that maybe at this stage I need to incorporate a regular stretching workout such as Yoga. Th ebenefits have been all around this past week, my ITB is a ton better to the point that I ran yesterday and felt little other than some tightness. I may just order one of those Yoga for athletes DVD to incorporate into my schedule ( because I do not have enough already :).
