Iliotibial band
My sweet and lovely physical therapist keeps telling me that my ITB (short for iliotibial band) is too tight. She kneads it and squeezes it and last time I has a therapy session, she raked it with a shoe horn. If she tries that again, I’m gonna give her such a ka-knock!
My ITB is supposed to be tight. It’s a fibrous reinforcement around certain muscles. Massaging it and stretching is is not going to make it loose. And I don’t want it loose anymore than I want the shocks and/or springs on my car loose.
The entire concept of being “too tight” really bugs me. It’s not a legitimate concept or condition actually. Truth be told, stretching is a pretty useless activity for much of anything.
Statements like the one I just made drive P.T.s and A.T.C.s batty. But the truth is when muscles are strong, they exude a high tonus (or tone as it is commonly called). Tonus is the state of resting tension of anything. For example, a wooden table exudes a higher tonus than a pillow. Weak muscles feel soft and pliable to the touch. Strong muscles feel hard and rigid. But this doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with strong muscles – something that stretching and massage will fix.
So because my muscles are strong, my P.T. thinks I’m tight and need to stretch. I beg to differ. I’m strong and fine the way I am. And I love a good massage. But a massage is beneficial for other reasons.
I’ll ship a free copy of my book Strong Kids, Healthy Kids: The Revolutionary Program for Increasing Your Child’s Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week
All friends of mine who I’ve had this conversation with already are, of course, excluded!
Good luck!
