Christian,

I am a triathlete and for whatever reason when I begin to bike more I
experience more problems with my IT band and hamstring.

It's been about 9 months since I've had pain in my leg. Only
recently has it begun to alleviate. I believe that are a few things
that have contributed to this:

1) Time to heal.

2) Really working on stretching tight hip flexors. (Runner's stretch,
seated groin stretch, etc.)

3) Not stretching (overstretching) my hamstring. Since I had
hamstring soreness\tightness along with ITB symptoms, just about
everyone that I saw told me to really work on stretching out my
hamstrings. However, now I think that my hamstrings were being
constantly overstretched by my tight hip flexors. (Is it possible
that they were winning the tug of war?) Gently strengthening my
hamstrings while stretching the opposing muscles (hip flexors, quads)
seems to be helping.

Someone on this site told me that the ITB is always the victim. This
seems to be true. You need to figure out what is causing the
imbalance or biomechanical problem and correct it.

Justin


--- In itbs@yahoogroups.com, chrisfz3 <no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am a cyclist riding about 15-20 hours a week and I have been
> having very bad knee/lower leg pains for the last 2 years when
doing
> hard racing or intensive training. My pt recently made
> the 'discovery' of ITBS and I am still to see an expert on this.
> So far I have found this website very helpfull and this made me
> pretty sure that ITBS might be the problem. Sorry to hear that you
> all have had the same problems, for me I'm now in a state where it
> keeps getting worse and basically hurts so much/often that I'm
> getting pretty desperate... I decided that I won't do any training
> at all before I have seen the specialist, but I'm kind of
> an 'training addict' so the prospect of me not riding my bike for
> the next couple of months (or even longer??) really makes me sad.
> Do any of you have some experience with this and biking? I was
> hoping I could do some very low intensity riding 1-2 hours a couple
> of times a week. I did a 3 hour ride this morning without any real
> discomfort but I know that as soon as I do train just a little
> harder I will have the pain in the legs for a couple of days.
>
> Any info?
>
> Thanks!
> Christian