wow, Alaska huh. This may be an ignorant statement you hear from people in the lower 48 all the time, but I can't imagine there are a lot of skinny dudes riding around on aerobars up there.
Anyways, I did a lot of stability drills. Stand on one leg, slightly bent and do various motions to work all the stabilizing muscles in the leg. Sometimes they would have me stand on an unstable platform and bounce a ball, or I would wrap a theraband around one leg and move in it various directions while standing on the other. Another drill had cones set up around me in a semi-circle and I would have to bend on one leg and touch the various cones. All of these were pretty difficult. The other thing I would do was leg press. I would do two-leg, one-leg, and one-leg eccentric. The eccentric just means up with two, down with one. Basically, I would do the most amount of weight with two legs, then maybe 70-80% of the two-leg weight eccentric, then 40-50% of the two-leg weight on one leg. 3 sets of each. The goal was to get to failure on 15 reps, in otherwords not be able to do the 15th or 16th repitition. These were extremely hard, especially the eccentric and one leg. I would start at a given weight on the first set. I would do as many reps as I could up to 18. Even if I could do more than 18 I would stop. The next set I would increase the weight. As long as I could do at least 13, and no more than 18, I would leave the weight were it was. The PT said that all the athletes at Michigan have to be able to do something like 20, one-leg reps, of their own body weight before they could participate in activities. That was pretty much the goal he gave me.
I also did adductors (or abductors, I can't remember which-it was the one where the resistance is against you as you pull your legs together). Only, he had me straighten my legs in front of me, in otherwords, I sat down, and my legs were straight at a 90 deg angle from my torso, with my toes pointed towards the ceiling. These were very hard as well, as it was difficult to keep the legs straight while doing the exercise.
I always warmed up for 10 minutes on a stationary bike before hand, and stretched, holding each stretch for a minute. I went into the PT with pain in my knees everyday, and after I had left I didn't have any pain, and I had a full season, putting more miles running and on the bike than last year, without any pain.
The basic problem I was having was tracking of the knee, which may not be as serious as what you had. Essentially, some of the muscles in the leg can get stronger on one side than the other, and pull the knee over, causing it to rub incorrectly and result in pain. I think I might have some diagrams of the exercises they gave me, if you want me to scan them and send them to you. Just send me your email address - I'm
aeroj27@hotmail.com.
Another thing that I did was get the "Pain Free Triathlete" from
www.julstro.com. This really helped relieve the immediate symptoms of my ITB pain, although I feel the strengthing exercises is what really got rid of the problems. Julstro.com has a forum you can post questions to, you might also want to try that.
As far as the elliptical goes, I just gave my personal opinion, which isn't based on extensive use, I know a lot of people that seem to like it, I'm just not sold on it. But if it's all you can do, it's definitely worth a shot. Hope this helps,
Jack
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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."