My PT experience

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On Wednesday, I had my first physical therapy session to try and get this whole IT band injury figured out.  I was nervous going in, but also excited about the prospect of gaining some sort of hope that I will be able to run again without pain.
The whole appointment took almost an hour.  I was really surprised that I was in there for that long, but glad that they were taking their time trying to figure things out.  They did a lot of different movements with my ankles, knee, and hip and compared my left to my right, the bad side.  I was AMAZED at how different my right leg acted when put through all of the movements.  Seriously, I had no idea that my right side was so jacked up.

One thing that surprised me was that my right ankle didn't rotate nearly as much as it should have.  The PT asked if I had ever had an ankle injury, which I haven't, because usually he sees the lack of movement from people who have had ankle strains, tears, ect.  He was thinking that if my ankle didn't work properly, allowing my foot to do it's natural pronation thing, then my hip would have to work to overcompensate that problem, maybe causing the IT band injury.

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He continued doing all of these different movements, but then focused on my IT band length (as pictured above).  WOW..what a difference between my two sides.  I had pretty much full range of motion on my left side, but my right was sooo tight.

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  Then, he tested my glute strength on both sides.  Basically he had me lay on my left side and raise my right leg up.  As he pushed down on my leg, the goal was for me to keep my leg up in the air.  However, my right glutes were so weak that it was REALLY hard to keep my leg up.  My left however, did awesome.

My new best friend!

So, as of now, I have 4 exercises, along with foam rolling 3X/day that I have do for homework over the next 3 weeks before my next appointment.  He said in the mean time, that I can continue to RULK (run/walk) as long as I take it easy and don't try to do too much too soon.  So, I'm going to start a walk/run regimin to get my miles in (along with the EFX machine) and just go from there.

The good news is that IMAZ isn't until November.  However, my training officially starts in 3 weeks.  YIKES!  

And, did I mention that I'm supposed to be running the Colfax 1/2 marathon in May?  DOUBLE YIKES!

BUT, I am not going to even think about the what-ifs at this point.  All I can do is hope and pray that my stretching, rest, and PT will be enough to get me back in the game. 

I know there are horrible things happening in the world right now, especially in Japan, and my IT band is nothing compared to what those people are going through.  I feel silly even complaining/whining about it.  But, running is just so much a part of who I am.  Without it I feel kind of lost and it is something that mentally is taking a toll on me.  So, this blog is my way of getting my frustration/stress/fear out so I don't keep it inside and self-destruct, or worse, start taking it out on my boys, which would be horrible!   

I really hope you all have a great weekend! :)