Last year when it started interfering with my ability to do things around the house, I decided to visit a Physical Therapist. Boy howdy! what a difference that made! After some poking and prodding and having me walking around and do things, he suggested a simple exercise with a theraband. I added that exercise to my morning routine and inside of a month was fully functional around the house. However, squats and lunges were still sometimes painful, perhaps because in the normal course of exercise, you do them to fatigue. These exercises are important to aging well (bone density, injury resistance, et blah cetera), so Thursday I had a follow-up visit.
Here in this less dignified photo you see the dots the PT put on my kneecaps to help me visualize the most effective orientation of my various parts. All my life, when coaches said "Make sure your knees go over your toes!", I carefully put them over the big toe. MISTAKE! over the big toe is way different from over the middle of the foot (the more so that I have wide feet like a duck, for better stability).
By using my glutes to re-orient my patella over the middle toes, (first with the yellow stick visual aid, then without) I took stress off my IT band and - haha! - lunged without pain. I'm back, baby! It will take a while to fix this 60-year habit, but why not start now? If you have a similar pain, I hope you may find such an easy fix.
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