Well, I'm going to put in another plug for hula hooping, which everyone knows I love! I like it because it works your entire core, it's not too strenous, I find the rhythmic movement relaxing AND you can do it while listening to your choice of music or watching your favorite TV show, which keeps it from getting too boring or repetitive.

I can't hula hoop to save me. I'm sure it could provide a good workout. My suggestion if you go that route is to start with a cheap kid's version to make sure you can do it.

I took yoga classes for years and can honestly say they helped immensely. I'm not flexible and didn't get a lot of improvement in that area, but I was able to maintain what I had and I was so much more aware of my physical presence ... the way I walked, the way I sat. I regret stopping the classes and have tried to get back in practice using a DVD at home, but it's just not the same or maybe I haven't found the right one.

My suggestion if you go that route is to start with a cheap kid's version to make sure you can do it.

Actually a cheap kid's version is most likely to guarantee failure. It is much more difficult to use a small lightweight hoop than an adult sized weighted hoop. I've been hooping for almost 2 years and can't keep the cheap kid's hoops going. The cost of an adult sized hoop is pretty low for excercise equipement.

I was going to say the same thing, that a kid's hoop won't be weighted, so that's not gonna work.

As for the videos, I SO TOTALLY AGREE about the Windsor ones! I tried one and I swear just the boring drone of the voice about put me to sleep. Are there any pilates/yoga studios/classes near you? We have a great one here in the city - not far from where I work. The guy over it is fantastic and actually some of the local doctors have been sending their patients to this studio rather than physical therapy.

Have you tried an exercise ball? Those are pretty neat also, and portable. We have a gal who keeps one in her office at work.

tina

I had really bad knees until I built the muscle above the knee through weight training (and I was in my 50's at the time).

Can you work out with some light weight dumb bells?

I agree with Terriks about the hula hoop. I don't use it much, but really do enjoy it when I do...and it works!

Hope your knees start to feel better soon!

Hooping! I totally forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder Terriks! That's something I'll be able to do and will be more fun that yoga.
Do you do it every day? I'll have to dig up those old threads and read.

Natal, Did you tone up with yoga? Maintain as in keep weight off? I guess I feel like if I'm not a sweated pig when I'm done working out I didn't do enough. I had hard enough time getting to the gym 3-4 days a week that if I'm not burning as many calories I reallly don't want to add another day. I'll probably have to adjust and modify my diet more.

Tina, I believe our gym has a pilates class but I think it's only once a week at 7:00. I did consider it but I like to be home by that time and our gym is pretty far away.
We have an exercise ball and I use it with weights or ab stuff.

Marlene, Thanks! I did lift weights regularly until this happen. The doctors told me not to do anymore cardio or lift weights with my legs until this was taken care. I continued to go and work my upper body for a while but it really bugged me not being able to do other stuff. I started to lift at home but just got disgusted with the whole thing, got out of the groove, and stopped. I do need to start back up.

The therapist told me my ,ahem,.. glutes are weak, IT band's tight and everything isn't lining up and working together the way it should. I also walk with my foot out (so lady like) so that doesn't help anything either. The fact that by the end of treatment I was literally feeling the same as when I went in is odd. Get a little better, feel worse and start all over again. I did everything exactly as told and really paid attention to form. For the most part, I'm not in a bunch of pain. It's tolerable but uncomfortable and not normal. The more I walk (Christmas shopping trip) the worse it feels. I originally figured this whole issue would be over in 5-7 days.

Shee, did the therapist say anything about your quads?

Also, and not everyone believes this really works, I use glucosimine which has helped my knees. It takes about six weeks to notice a difference, but since I've been taking it and keeping my quads strong, knock wood, I can jog five miles a day at 62.

I know it's frustrating, but you'll get better.

Marlene, You job 5 miles a day?! Woo, you go! That's awesome.

Doc says my quads were strong. My legs were alway the body part I actually really liked training.

I started taking glucosamine chondroitin a few weeks ago. Probably would help if it took it consistantly! My boss had problems with his knee when he was younger and he swears by deer anteler/velvet pills. I haven't researched that one out.

They make sports hoops for your arms!! :)

Shee -- I too have knee pain caused by weak glutes and IT band issues. I am in PT right now -- I did a previous course in the spring which helped but didn't totally fix it. This PT seems to be a little more running-focused than my previous one -- I only have 5 exercises to do so far (I've been doing it at home) and I can already tell that they are making more of a difference than the whole course of stuff I did in the spring.

But I have another recommendation for you -- do you have a foam roller? I noticed a HUGE and immediate improvement in my knee pain after the first time I used a foam roller on my IT band. As in I went from barely able to walk without limping to 90%-fine in a day or two. You can buy a foam roller on Amazon for like $25 and it made a huge huge difference for me. I went from not being able to run at all to running pretty much pain-free.

The orthopedist I am seeing now says that the foam roller does a great job controlling and managing the IT band issues, but to prevent them from happening in the first place, you need PT, which is why I'm back at the PT office even though my knee is (knock on wood) feeling pretty good right now. I can give you the exercises I am doing now -- they are so simple, compared to all the stuff the last PT had me doing, and yet they seem to be working much better -- or maybe it's just because I'm also doing the foam roller now -- who knows. But if you haven't tried a foam roller, I can't stress enough that you get one and try it. I even saw that they sell a small one at Target for like $15, though you'd probably be better off spending the extra $10 and getting the bigger professional grade one at Amazon.

To answer your original question, I have the winsor pilates workouts and I love them. I personally know a few people who lost major major weight (like 80 lbs) doing nothing but winsor pilates tapes -- one of them was even tapped to be in a winsor pilates infomercial after she wrote to the company with her success story. A few years ago, I lost about 30 lbs using Winsor as my only exercise -- if you do it consistently, it does tone and sculpt you, and it works wonders for your abs and lower back (I had always had lower back problems including surgery for a herniated disk, but since I started doing winsor regularly, I haven't had back pain in years.) There are a ton of different winsor workouts -- if you find them boring, try getting a more advanced one and you might find it more interesting/challenging.

Good luck with your knee pain! I know that I was going bonkers when I couldn't run, so I know how you must be feeling. The foam roller singlehandedly saved my running and my sanity -- try it!!!

I do try to hoop most days. I started taking classes in hoop dance, and can now do quite a few "tricks". Lifting the hoop off the body and spinning it with my hands, etc. So my arms are actually getting more of a workout now. We use much lighter hoops for the hoop dancing. It's pretty fun, but takes a much larger space than simple waist or hip hooping. When I am just waist hooping and watching TV I put on some wrist weights to keep my arms toned.

Lkplatow - I'm a proud owner of a foam roller. :) They had me doing that at PT and also at home a few times a day so I bought one. Didn't that hurt like a bugger the first time!? The first time I was like,"ow, oww, OW!" but it got much better over time. I'll admit I've slacked off because I was frustrated but it obviously was doing something good and I've heard wonderful things about them in the past.

I'm so happy to hear this is actually fixable! I'm tired of people acting like I'm a wuss.

I'd like to hear what exercises they have you doing if you wouldn't mind. I have a long list that takes about 40 min to do everything. Soo... we're supposed to do the PT exercises forever more? I was trying to figure out how I was going to continue with those + cardio (was doing an hour), + weight lifting. It takes a long time to do all that!

I guess my MRI didn't come back perfect. There were no tears but I did have some fluid in my knee. Remember this was after I was discharged from PT. PT then told me to ice, ibuprofen and only do x exercises (even though none of the exercises bothered me knee). He then followed up with me a few times and told me to continue the exercises and that it just takes time, blah, blah. A few weeks later, with no positive change, he suggested I could come back and see a different PT for a second opinion but it seemed like he was just saying something because he was out of ideas and people don't really like to hear that. He's a young guy (25) so hasn't been doing it long but he seemed to have it together. If not, he fooled me. He tried all different types of tests, etc. on me. We even tried taping a few different ways, which seemed to help for a while but later I wonder if it was just one of those times when my knee seemed to be on the mend. The strength in my muscles did improve when he did progress checking but I was still having issues.

Do you have shooting pain through yours at times? I do right now actually but it's not that often.

Do know when yours actually happened? I had been working out "consistently" since the beginning of the year and had a great workout that Wed. night in June and felt fine afterwards. Felt totally normal the next day but as soon as I stepped on the stair stepper that night and started pumping my knee didn't hurt but felt very weird/unstable inside. After a few min. of it not going away, stupid me just switched machines to the elliptical and pushed through most of my workout. It felt funny the next couple days and by day 3 I had pain. No swelling. I did start to ice then and take ibuprofen. It seemed like it was getting better, then got worse. This went on a few times until Aug. when I went to the Dr. I guess if things aren't lined up right and working together this can eventually happen and it doesn't have to be from a specific incident. Different times I would have the sharp pain. Usually it was when my knee was bent a certain way. Driving was uncomfortable. The muscle around the knee, to the left and top at times felt very sore and achy. Again, no pattern to any of this. It's very hard to describe how it feels. I want to say unstable but it doesn't actually feel like it's going to give out. Kind of feels like it needs to crack but I don't believe that�s it. It just feels weird inside! My Dad has had all kinds of issues and surgeries on his knees and swore it was torn cartilage. I'm glad he was wrong according to my MRI.

I'm very happy to hear the Winsor tapes actually do work. Did you do them every day? I don't think I ever really gave them a real chance. Sometimes afterwards I found my lower back hurt but maybe I wasn't paying attention to my form the entire time or breathing right. My core is weak. PT had me doing stuff for that too.

Woo, got a little chatty.

Terriks, I added a hoop to my Christmas list. :)

I've never seen the foam rollers! I also had trouble with my IT's several years ago and did several weeks of PT. My pain was in my hips and my internist actually thought I might have bursitis. My therapist was wonderful and a deep muscle massage queen. I swear, I think that helped more than anything. Anyhoo, I bought a roller at a runner's store which is hard - it's wood. As mine do occasionally tighten up - I'm going to look for one of the foam ones.

tina

Tina, they have smaller sizes for home use too. I bought a small one from the PT, looks like a roll of paper towels, works just as well as the large and stores much easier. I also use it for my quads but that's a little more awkward with the short one.

Glad you already have a foam roller. Yes, it hurts majorly bad the first time. You do know (some people don't) that you are supposed to find a spot that hurts and just sit there on it for as long as you can stand it, then move to another painful spot and do the same thing -- holding yourself over the painful spot is more effective than just rolling back and forth but a lot of people think they are supposed to keep rolling.

I don't know if we ever get a pass out of the PT exercises. I know that I stopped doing all of mine after my course in the spring, and my knee pain came back pdq, so I'm guessing that we should keep up with them. The ones I have now don't take long to do at all, so I'll try to stick with them, but you are right - by the time you do the cardio and strength stuff, it seems like exercise is consuming all your free time. I have just been considering the PT stuff part of the weight/strengthening component so instead of going to the gym to lift, I've been doing pushups and dumbbells at home plus all the PT stuff for the lower body. (And I'll try to squeeze in a winsor tape for my core - they're only 20 minutes so they're pretty easy to sandwich in).

My knees have been x-rayed and I had an MRI in the left. Like you, there was nothing majorly wrong -- my right knee (the one that doesnt' hurt) showed some bone spurs or soemthing that is the beginning of osteoarthritis, and my left knee showed some bone marrow edema and fluid. But I know the pain is coming from my IT band because of how effective the foam roller is. Apparently, women are more prone to this because of their wider hips -- it creates a harder angle from the knee to the hip that puts more stress on the join. I got the old "ice and ibuprofen" from my last PT too, but I didn't find it all that helpful. You might consider trying to find a PT who is a runner/sports medicine specialist -- although my last PT was a sport medicine place, the new place is associated with the premier sports medicine practice in the area (they treat all the pro athletes around here) and they seem to be much more specific as far as "running-focused" exercises without wasting my time on all the general strengthening stuff.

"Do you have shooting pain through yours at times? I do right now actually but it's not that often. "

Yes. When my knees were the worst, I had a shooting pain on the outside of my left knee -- strangely, it would go away while running but come right back afterwards. And then it would get to the point where I'd be running along fine then get a stabbing pain so sharp I had to stop. The pain seemed to move around -- most of the time on the outside of my left knee, but sometimes on the inside of the left or over on both sides of my right. I think it was moving because I was compensating for the initial pain with my stride, which was putting more stress on the other side of my knees.

"Do know when yours actually happened?"

I've had bad knees for basically ever - I had a car accident in my early 20s where my knees slammed the dashboard, and they just haven't been right ever since. I ran a lot in my 20s and had knee problems then, for which I had orthotics made (I have crazy high arches) but never had pt or anything. I took a 15 year layoff from running while I got fat and had kids, then lost the weight and resumed running this spring. My knees hurt so bad when I first started - that's when I did the first round of PT. I was doing pretty good all summer but a few months ago on an older (probably not as cushy as the newer ones) treadmill at the Y, I was kicking up the speed and just felt that shooting pain again. That's when this latest flareup started and it just never really went away -- it would come and go, some days better than others. On the worst days, it would feel like my kneecap was being yanked to the left with every step I took and that the pieces inside my knee weren't fitting together right. The pain was so bad that I stopped running for a while, but then I discovered the foam roller and experienced the "miracle cure" I described earlier.

"I'm very happy to hear the Winsor tapes actually do work. Did you do them every day?"

I started doing the winsor tapes back in 2004ish, right after I had my son -- the friend of mine who ended up in the winsor infomercial turned me on to them and it was all the exercise I did back then. I did do it every day -- at first I did the beginner 20 minute workout then I alternated the ab sculpting and buns & thigh workout. Between that and watching what I ate, I lost 30 lbs of baby weight. But I put it all back on when we had all the stucco problems with my house - I ate and ate and ate because I was stressed and depressed. I started winsor again as part of my current weight loss push, which started in April 2009. I've lost 70 lbs since then, mostly through cardio at the gym (I did recumbent bike for a year, til I had lost enough weight that I felt I could try runnning) but I've also been doing the winsor once or twice a week -- usually I will do them on days that I don't do any cardio. Like I said, I have noticed huge improvements in my core from the winsor and I plan to keep doing them forever. I like that most of them are only 20 minutes so it's easy to squeeze them in somewhere during the day. You do have to watch your form and keep your belly button tucked in and your abs tight throughout, or you will end up hurting your back. But if I could do it at about 8 weeks post c-section, I'm sure you can do it!

So ok, the exercises I'm doing now are pretty simple. There are 5 of them and I'm supposd to do them every day (I've skipped a few days though). I will try to describe as best as I can -- it's hard without pictures or someone showing you.

1. Side-slides. In socks, on a hardwood or other slippery floor, slide one foot sideways as far as comfortable while keeping your knees mostly straight (slight bend is ok), then slide the other foot over to meet it. Continue sliding back and forth sideways, doing at least 10 "steps" in one direction than 10 "steps" back. Don't pick your feet up, slide them. Repeat for at least 2-3 sets.

2. Wall squats - with your back against a wall, place your feet about 2 feet out from the wall. Slide your back down the wall til your thighs are parallel to the floor. Hold 2-3 seconds, then slide back up. My old PT had me doing these holding a ball between my knees which works the inner thighs. The new PT has me doing them with a band around my knees, pressing my knees outwards, not in. They say this helps the glutes and outer thighs, which is what I need. And it does seem to be working better than the old way.

3. Bridges - lay on the floor with your calves up on one of those big blow-up exercise balls. Keep your knees straight. Pick up your butt while keeping your knees straight so that your whole body is makign a straight line from your feet to your shoulder-blades which are resting on the ground. Hold for 5 seconds (it's sort of like a plank, but you are facing upwards and your feet are higher than your head), then lower your butt. You are basically working your glutes and hips by picking them up off the ground and holding them there. Repeat 10 times and do 2-3 sets.

4. Bird dogs - get down on yoru hands and knees with your hands directly below your shoulders and your knees directly below your hips. Keep your back flat, not arched. Raise one leg straight out behind you while raising the opposite arm straight out in front of you. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Lower arm and leg down then repeat. Repeat 10 times on each side and do 2 sets. You must keep your back as still as possible during this - no wobbling. The PT said to pretend you have a full glass of water sitting in the middle of your back and try not to spill any of it.

5. Dead lifts - Standing on one foot, bend at the waist and extend the other leg straight behind you -- sort of like an ice skater doing an arabesque. You don't have to bend parallel to the floor, but should get your torso to at least 45 degrees. Get your back leg up as high as you can, really squeezing your butt. Hold for 5 seconds, then lower. Repeat 10 times on each side and do 2-3 sets.

Lots of good information to help you, sheesharee. What's a foam roller? Could you possibly link to one?

And I just want to add that we found a set of Pilates DVDs that we use that *really* help us. We use the 17 and the 27, but there's also a 7 to start out with, if you are really new to Pilates. I'll link to them below.

Oh, and we got piping and joiners from Home Depot and by taping it together with duct tape, we made three hula hoops of different sizes for less than the cost of one, with even more left over to make more when they deteriorate (which they do, with regular use). As an avid DIYer, I always feel better when I can make something myself.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rael Isacowitz--brilliant, clearly explained, well paced

Oooh - this is turning into a great thread - so much info and so helpful for several of us!

lkplatow - Thank you for the exercise info! I've done all of those (but not in some time) except the slides. I've noticed some tightness lately though so I should start doing the exercises again AND I will get a foam roller. I was lucky in that I had a good therapist, responded well to her treatment and was not in treatment long.

Fly - thanks for the pilates/yoga info, I will take a look at those tapes also. No offense to those who like Windsor, it just wasn't for me and we all know in exercise, it's important to use whatever motivates each of us. I do believe that yoga is wonderful in strengthening the core and keeping us flexible. To me, it is also somewhat relaxing and stress relieving.

Here's to keeping our lower halves in good shape! LOL

tina

I will link to the foam roller I have below. They're basically just a roller made of foam - like a fatter hard pool noodle. They come in various sizes - I have the 6" diameter by 36" long. It's a pain to store, but they say the longer one is better because you can lay your spine down on the length of the roller and roll back and forth as a DIY back massage (I tried this once, but I have long hair and it kept getting caught under the roller -- I'll have to try it again with my hair in a bun!). It's also easier to balance yourself on the longer ones when you're rolling your legs. To see what you are supposed to do with them, you can google "foam roller exercises" or "foam roller knee pain" which is how I discovered the miracle cure for my IT band issues! You basically lay yourself on top of the thing, roll til you find a painful spot, and let the pressure of your body weight against the roller loosen the muscle -- it's like a DIY deep tissue massage.

Here is a link that might be useful: My foam roller at Amazon

Wow, lk -- thanks so much! I think every one of us, including my 13 y.o., could use this. She has IT band issues from running.

May I ask a followup question: did you get a half-round or a whole round?

Ack, I have to run out the door and I want to respond to all of this like RIGHT NOW.

My PT just told me to roll. :( I'll admit I'd roll more on the really sore spots. I'm going to try it your way from here on out.

Be back later. Christmas shopping awaits!

I'm so glad you posted that link - because I had a completely different picture in my head. Mine is like a stick - you don't lay on it - you roll it down the hip/leg (think rolling pin LOL). I was thinking you meant a foam version of that. Interesting! I noticed a book that showed using the foam rollers for different massages. Also the stretch bands were showed in one pic with the roller - I have those from PT also. They do seem to work well.

tina

flyleft - I have the whole round - I guess the half round would work fine to balance on, but you'd have to drag yourself across it til you found the sore spot - I would think it would be much easier to just roll yourself over it until you find the spot that hurts. The difference it has made in my knee pain has been amazing. I'm like a foam roller evangelist now!

Tina - there is a thing called "The Stick" that you roll (like a plastic rolling pin) along your muscles, and I know several people who swear by them, but supposedly the foam roller lets you get deeper into the muscle because you are using your whole body weight against roller instead of using arm-power to push the stick against the muscle.

Fly, Thanks for the heads up on the pilates Dvds and hoops! I'm excited to dig out my pilates stuff and get moving. I wish they had a section where they explained the stuff and another option to go through the workout with less talking. I think that's what gets on my nerves. I glad she explains but it's too much time wasted between.

Lkplatow - Hey, I have crazy high arches too! I had custom orthodics made two summers ago but I haven't worn them because I don't have shoes I can take the soles out. I can use them in my sneakers but sneakers don't go with everything and since they're not broke in (orthodics), hurt my feet.

For bird dogs, doesn't that bother your knees being on them?

How long do you do your foam roller?

I think I'm going to do a combination of yours and a few of mine and see. Maybe I just didn't do the stuff long enough but "10ish weeks" of getting a little better and worse..... ? When it was all over I still had fluid in my knee.

He did have me doing dead lifts and I think you explained it better. Here's my crazy long list of stuff that takes forever and a day to do. I should mention, it bothered me to be on my knees so that's why some of these are the way they are. I was to keep my core tight for everything and keep good form/posture even if I don't mention it below. It's very hard to describe some of this.

1.Bike with the seat up high so it didn't bother me knee. Towards the end I was doing the elliptical. 8 min.

2.Shuttle/leg press - I'd lay on one of those shuttles and use one foot for the press. I'd use a band around my other foot that was up in the air (arms holding the band down and out) and that was supposed to engage my core more. - 2 sets of 15

3.Crossovers on discs - I stood on those round balance discs and bands were tied to a machine. I'd keep my core tight and move just my arms back and forth making sure to keep my shoulders straight. -used a blue band 30 times then turn around and do it facing the other direction.

4.Lateral tap downs - Stand with one foot at the edge of one of those steppers with the other foot hanging off. Whatever side your foot's on the step, that's the side you want to hold onto something. Bend at the knee, pushing your butt back/down and making sure your knee doesn't go over your foot. Your other foot taps down towards the ground. - 20 on each leg.

5.Split squats. Feet apart in a lunge position and squat down keeping form so that your knee isn't over your foot. Pushing up through heel. 2 set of 10.

6.Single leg balance on foam. I'd stand on one of those square, blue foam pieces with one leg. Knee slightly bent and other foot back. 4 sets of 30.

7.Hamstring, quad, and calf stretches - for both legs. 3 sets of 30 ea.

8.Single leg hop and hold. - Like you're running in slow motion. Hop and hold for 5 seconds on the foot you land on. I felt like an idiot doing this. 60'/2 times.

9.Miniband side steps - red band went right above knees. Back straight, shoulders back, hunker down, knees a little less than hip width apart and mini side step. 60'/ 2 times.

10.Miniband side kicks - red band above knees. Stood in front of one of those wall railings and held on. Kicked leg back and out. 20 each side.

11.Glut-max laying on ball. Rolled my belly onto an exercise ball, hands touching floor in front, bend knee, lift leg up, out and straight. 2 sets of 10 on each leg.

12.RDL's single leg dead lifts with weights. I used one of those machines with the weighted pulls. You can also use a dumbbell. One leg is bent; use the opposite hand to hold the pull or weight, other leg is back. Keeping back, shoulders, hips, straight..lean forward and use your glutes to pull yourself back to starting position. 15 times each leg.

13.Clams - lay on your side with legs pulled up and together. Keeping ankles together lift knee up. Like a clam. I used weights around my knees. 5 lbs 2 sets of 15 each side.

14.Prone hip extension (laying over table) - Lay your upper body over a table, bed, something and lift one leg up and back and out about 5 degrees. Knee straight. 2 sets of 10 each side.

15.Foam roller - sides of legs and quads - min. for each

16.Planks - normal forward ones and side ones 3 sets of 30-60 seconds each.

It's late so I'm just going to respond train-of-thought to your questions.....

RE your exercises -- that's a lot of the stuff my last PT had me doing -- I think it's general leg strengthening stuff and probably all very good stuff to do, but the exercises the new PT gave me really get the butt and outside of the hips, which is what I need, apparently, to cure the IT band stuff. And it takes so much less time -- if I hustle, I can do everything in 10 minutes.

re: pilates being too boring and slow-paced -- the more advanced winsor workouts are much faster-paced with less explaining. See if you can get a hold of the Maximum Burn series - she goes very fast in that one. There's a 20 minute one and a 45 mninute one. I think they're both out of print, but there are usually plenty of used copies on amazon (cheap!)

re: your arches -- I think high arches are big contributors to knee pain. I'm sure you already did this, but make sure you have the right shoes -- high arched feet need neutral/cushioned shoes -- any sort of stability or motion control shoe will just screw you up further. I have Nike Zoom Vomero 4's -- they are the cushiest shoes ever but they don't last long -- my last pair needed replacing after less than 200 miles. You may want to see a different podiatrist for a second opinion on your orthotics -- I've seen a few and each one has a different opinion on what kind orthotics to make me. I have a set of old orthotics from my 20s and sometimes I wear them to run, sometimes I don't. I don't think they make much difference actually. (Part of me thinks podiatry is a hocus-pocus kind of field!.) A good book to read is "Running Injury Free" by Joe Ellis. He is a podiatrist but very knowledgable and I found it fascinating how he took people's weird pains and traced them down to all kinds of crazy causes (one woman had hip pain that he traced to a tiny nail that had penetrated the sole of her running shoe and was very mildly poking her as she ran -- she didn't even realize it was there, but it was throwing off her stride to such an extent that it screwed up her ankle, knee and hip. But anyway, he spends a lot of time talking about how people's arches and foot structure can really cause issues all the way up the leg - it's interesting to read.

re: how long I foam roll - I usually foam roll for a few minutes. You are supposed to stay on each painful spot for as long as you can and at least 20-30 seconds. I will roll til I hit all my painful spots (some twice) or until my arms get tired from holding me up (I find that you have to be pretty acrobatic to get yourself in some of these positions, LOL!) If you have painful spots, you need to roll. The first time I did it, my right IT band didn't hurt at all -- not one bit -- when I foam rolled it (and of course, my right knee didn't hurt). My left IT band, on the other hand, was excruciatingly painful the whole way up and down my leg. I rolled for maybe 3-4 minutes total (it hurt so bad I had to stop) and the next morning, I felt so much better. When I rolled again (I was doing it twice a day at first, now just once a day), there were far fewer painful spots, and now I find that if I keep up the rolling regularly, I can roll and not find any painful spots at all (and then I'm done in like 20 seconds!). Basically, if you feel any pain when you roll your IT band, you've found a problem and you just need to park there on the roller and let the roller work the knot out. Seriously -- in just days, with proper rolling, you should be feeling far less pain during the rolling itself and of course, less knee pain during all your activities.

re: the fluid in your knee -- the fluid in your knee might never go away but it is probably not causing your pain. I have tons of fluid in both knees (docs think it is from the trauma of the accident) but other than making really loud crackling popping noises all the time (seriously, in my first set of PT, people could hear my knees popping from across the room when I was doing those step-ups and stuff - it was gross!), it never hurt. The pain is caused by the muscles around your knee pulling your kneecap all out of whack. Once you release the tension in your IT band and strengthen the other muscles around the knee to hold your kneecap in place, it won't be getting yanked all over the place and your pain should go away or at least become a lot more managable.

Good luck!

Oh forgot to answer your question about the bird dogs hurting my knees -- sometimes it bothers me to be on my knees but not too bad -- as long as I'm careful to stay so my weight is on the bone below my kneecap, I'm usually ok. It's if I go tipping myself up on my kneecaps (like to do pushups on my knees) that it starts to hurt. I usually try to put a towel or pilates mat or something under my knees to help pad things out as well. I have found that when you have kids, you spend a crazy amount of time on your knees on the floor (changing diapers, scrubbing sweet potatoes out of grout, or, now that my kids are older, just playing board games or legos) so my knees are kind of immune to kneeling at this point :-) When the kids were smaller, though, I did have a couple special thick foam kneeling pads that I got from the local garden center -- they were extremely helpful for when I had to kneel on the tile to give the kids a bath. Hmmmm...maybe I should dig those out for the bird dogs......I bet they'd be really comfy!

Thanks for all that detail! DH is very interested in getting one of the rollers, so we'll buy at least one today.

Shee, thanks for asking this question. I'm very thankful that I don't have joint issues; however, during winter I'm a computer/crafting couch potato and need SOMETHING.

Your post and the responses give a lot of food for thought. I did read through the responses this morning on the computer monitor; I'm going to print this post so I can study the answers. I've never heard of those rollers; they sound intriguing to me. I also get bored with most "canned" exercise videos.

Secondly, going back to your painted kitchen cabinets. You had me totally going! I've seen how quickly you've changed the corner in your living room, your vignettes on another GW forum and thought for sure you had decided what you wanted and went after them. Joke's on me.

Lkplatow, 10 min. sound SOOO much more appealing for a continuing routine. Trailrunner on here directed me to some sneaker sites a while back and I did get a pair of NB neutral sneakers.
" I've seen a few and each one has a different opinion on what kind orthotics to make me"
Geez, really?

Thanks for explaining about the bird dogs. I got a kick out of the sweet potato grout. Something for me to look fw. to, heeh. ;)

Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll look into it.

Betty, :)Ha, sorry. I think I'm going to leave my kitchen alone for now. I just saw Mitch's comment on the thread and she's right, anything I paint will domino the area. Plus, DH really doesn't want me to paint cabinets so I'll hold off.

My knee felt pretty good yesterday, and it's days like those I considering hitting up a piece of cardio equipment but I've been leery to go there.

Well I'm glad I decided to blabber in more detail when I started this thread. I was originally just going to keep it short and ask for workout suggestions. I'm so glad all this info. came out. :) Going to try the new exercises, get a hoop, and some new pilates dvds!