Good evening! I don’t know about you, but today has been an unusually busy summer day. My dad had the day off of work so I woke up early to grab breakfast with him. I got banana pancakes and they were delicious. I really wish I had snapped a picture of them. I feel like a complete dork, but anytime I eat banana pancakes I think of the Jackson Johnson song  and I instantly start singing it in my head!

After that, my dad and I went to visit my grandpa and grandma. It was nice to see them both one more time before I make my big move this Saturday. We also grabbed a late lunch there. I got vegetable, black bean, and rice fajitas. They were tasty! This has definitely been a day full of eating. 😛  Once we got back home it was late afternoon and I decided to tackle some packing since I move in two days. Thankfully, I don’t have too much to pack as I never unpacked all my things when I graduated from college a little over a month ago. After an hour or so of packing I decided it was time to get a workout in. I’ll finish up my packing tomorrow. It was a beautiful day so I decided to go for a short bike ride. I really wanted to run, but I still can’t because of my IT band injury. Thankfully, no IT band pain during the 30-40 minute bike ride so that’s a good sign!

In addition to biking, I wanted to discuss what I’ve been doing during this injury to stay in shape, strengthen my body, and allow my IT band to heal. I do want to mention that after my half marathon and during the time I discovered this injury I have also taken several rest days, something I haven’t done in a while. As a previous college athlete, I used to almost fear rest days i(days where I did not run or do any cardio workouts). I think my IT band needed the rest and I am no longer training for specific seasons so I can afford to do this. I think because I took a little more than a week of no cardio workouts I was able to jump right back into biking, a workout that may aggravate or cause pain to some people with IT band syndrome. Below is a list of the workouts I have been doing, in addition to biking, for the last two weeks to try to help my IT band heal.

IT band rehabilitation routine that focuses on strengthening my hips and glutes. The routine I do is something I learned after going to a physical therapist my freshmen year of college when I got my first case of IT band syndrome. I do TheraBand exercises, balancing exercises and some core moves. Online I found a routine that is very good and quite similar to the one I do at Strength Running: http://strengthrunning.com/2011/02/the-itb-rehab-routine-video-demonstration/.

Core and pushups. I’ve been trying to do core exercises and pushups nearly everyday. I am up to around 50 pushups most days of the week so I am proud of myself! I also focus on whole body moves such as planks, bridges, and hollow holds as well as crunches and sit ups. I typically hold my planks and bridges for two minutes and do 50- 200 crunches/sit ups.

Yoga/stretching. This is my weakest area and possibly why I got injured in the first place. I probably did not dedicate enough time after my runs to stretch or do yoga. For that reason I have been focusing on improving myself, but I am definitely a work in progress. I love how yoga feels, but I hate doing it if that makes sense. I am not flexible by any means and sometimes I wonder if my hips are made of metal because of how difficult they are to stretch! I have a yoga app on my phone I really like called Yoga Studio. I like using the app on days I want to do a more structured yoga routine.

Foam rolling. So painful, but so good! I foam roll everyday sometimes multiple times per day focusing on my IT bands, but I still roll out all my muscles. All you need is a few minutes once per day and a brave face to endure the potential pain and reap the benefits.

Have you ever had a running or sports related injury? If so what kind of workouts and rehabilitation did you do in order to stay in shape and heal?