Your knees may arguably be the most important joints in your legs.  Without the proper functioning of your knees you’re going to have a real hard time performing effective fat burning exercises, like running intervals. Running can be a great fat burning exercise, but too much running combined with bad biomechanics can lead to repetitive stress injuries.

One of the most common knee injuries that people suffer from is the ITB (Iliotibial Band) Syndrome. Your ITB is a long fascial band (tendon) that runs along the entire length of your thigh and attaches your TFL (Tensor Fascia Latae) muscle in your hip to your tibia (shin bone).  The function of the TFL via ITB is hip abduction, but perhaps more importantly, it functions to restrict excessive tibial (shin) internal rotation.  I know I’m getting a little technical, but hang in there, I’ll explain.

Your tibia (shin bone) is connected to you ankle bone and your ankle bone is connected to the foot bone and…well you know how the rest goes.  Well, when you take a step walking or running, your foot pronates (arches drop) which causes your ankle and your tibia (shin bone) to internally rotate.  This is a normal function of your gait.  This happens every time you walk, run or do just about anything that requires you to bear weight on one leg.  Problems arise when excessive foot pronation (dropping of your arches) occurs from either poor biomechanics, weak muscles, or from “over doing it”—causing your supporting muscles and tendons to have to work harder than they’re use to.

Too much pronation causes excessive internal rotation of the tibia (shin bone) which puts undue stress on your ITB.  Normally your ITB glides over the lateral epicondyle… the outer boney part of you knee… every time you bend it, but the increased stress and tension on your ITB increases friction between your ITB and the boney prominence of you knee. If this persists, it can lead to ITB Syndrome.

However,  there are ways to avoid ITB Syndrome by being a little proactive.  I’ll show you an effective dynamic ITB stretch you can do to help keep your muscles and tendons flexible.

Another very helpful exercise is the squats.  Performing squats helps increase your glute strength to stabilize your hips and minimize the risk of getting injuries like ITB syndrome.  The key is proper form (shown below). Performing squats properly can be the difference between recruiting the right muscles and strengthening your joints or exacerbating the problem and making you even more susceptible to injuries like ITB syndrome.

Remember, when it comes to exercising and staying fit, don’t over do it!  Listen to your body and don’t push yourself beyond what your body can handle.  There’s a very fine line between pushing your limits to improve your fitness and pushing it too much.  If you’re starting out, it’s always better to play it on the safe side so that you can continue to make progress without being hindered by injuries.