Loss of coordination in leg - Official runner's dystonia / focal dystonia discussion thread

spokompton wrote:

Like I said before, I havn't had any problems on run on any natural surface in a while. However, the true test comes when I run on the treadmill. I will get the sensation after about 30 minutes on the flat incline. Half the time now, when on the treadmill, I can almost run through it by varrying the speeds and mixing up my cadence. I can usually stop for a short time and resume for at least another 30 minutes without incident. This whole treadmill phenomena completely perplexes me....

The treadmill. Over five years ago now, I first noticed my problem while doing hard repeats, on a slight uphill incline, on a treadmill. I distinctly remember the first time it happened: my left hip/hamstring locked up towards the end of my last repeat. I thought nothing of it at the time, dismissing it as an anomalous cramp. Little did I know that it portended a chronic problem that plagues me to this day.

Like many on this thread, I have an easier time on uneven surfaces. My theory is that an uneven surface (like an ungroomed trail) makes it possible for the foot to land slightly differently on successive steps, thereby stressing the upper leg muscles in slightly different ways. The variance delays the point at which the "loss of coordination" occurs. The treadmill, being as unvaried as a surface can be, is the worst environment for this condition. It makes sense to me that varying speeds on the treadmill helps you out, as you use different muscles at different speeds.

For the record, I have tried everything I can think of with little success. I've tried deep tissue massage, pressure point therapy, different stretches, and an endless array of core strengthening exercises. Over the last five years, I have thrice taken four months off; each time, my condition was worse when I resumed running. Even one week off makes things worse.

I frequently think of quitting running. But every once in a while--maybe once or twice a month--I feel somewhat better and it gives me hope.

Do you have one leg longer than the other? I suppose that most people do, and this is the main cause of such problems, whether we are runners or not.

I had this problem, loss of co-ordination with many other muscle problems, six months ago. After several weeks I noticed that the problems got worse when I ran on softer ground.

Also, someone on this thread posted some very good advice about how many of us have been brainwashed by the knee lift dogma, and that what we should be focusing on is lifting the feet.

So I figured that the solution for me would be to run very slowly for a long distance on roads, concentrating on lifting the feet. I did this for 17 miles and felt that it was working, and over the next few days, my problems gradually disapeared and I was able to return to full fitness.

I've been doing the retro stairs for the past few days now, but I don't really feel it in my left glute med muscle. It feels like my left hip is locked and my left glute max does the work. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

I do think you may be onto something with the lateral shift. I definitely am shifted towards my right side. My left glute med feels nearly non-existent compared to my right which is much larger and sticks out. At the same time though, my right leg is also the one that appears to be shorter, probably due to a tight quadratus lumborum or illiopsoas. I've been trying to stretch these muscles out to no avail so far.

AB, how long have you been doing these exercises and have you seen progress in your running? Unfortunately I hurt my arch a week ago and haven't been able to run much at all, so until I can run without pain again, I won't be able to see if these exercises are improving my condition or not, other than aesthetically of course.

Doing all these exercises r not only meant to strengthen the supporting muscles, but also to teach us proper gait and movement patterns.

If your right leg appears shorter and tighter at the hip, then it might be that u constantly rest your trunk on that side when u stand, walk, run, etc.

It also seems that you do not activate your 'longer' leg's adductors enough to keep that hip more toward the midline of your body and this contributes even more to the right lean. This also means that there is little of the normal lateral shifting of body weight from side to side as u change support from one foot to the other as u move.

If the hip supporting muscles of both sides fire evenly in daily activities (ie the adductors and gluteus medius), then we will experience no harmful loading of the joints and mobilising muscles. Your feet will point forward and u will land on your ball of foot.If you splay your feet (or one of your feet)when you run/walk, u will find that it is the tensor fascia lata and iliotibial band and biceps femoris that are activated to support your trunk/hips laterally during one leg stance, NOT YOUR GLUTEUS MEDIUS AND ADDUCTORS AND INNER HAMSTRINGS. Over time this puts a lot of unhealthy stress on your knee tendons, peroneals, anterior/posterior tibialis, IT band, iliopsoas.

When u run, as u r recovering yr leg from rear drive, u will also most likely be using yr outer hamstrings more to pull the lower leg back up and forward, creating a slight outward rotation as u bring the hip in front for the next step. When u land, your feet will also likely to point outward and strike at the heel. This leads to overpronation.

This badly affects the achilles and ankle tendons, foot metatarsals, soleus and gastrocnemius, and even your knees.

Usually this affects one side at a time for most people because we tend toward a preferred side. We also tend to overcompensate toward one side when we develop problems on the other.

Learning proper movement patterns is crucial to ensure that we fire all the correct muscles at the right time and sequence. U might have done glute med and core ex.s till u faint, but if u still resume faulty gait and movement techniques, the loss of coordination remains. Rather, having done all these corrective ex.s, we need to walk/run daily in the positions that we adopt when we perform these ex.s.

I don't think in general any one is doing any of the ex.s wrongly, or failing to stretch properly, etc. Its just that we tend to lose awareness of which muscles r not firing when we run, bec we r not aware of what a good posture constitutes.

Especially when we run long, we can get into that mid-numbing zone when we wish to adopt 'autopilot' mode, and so we r no longer technique conscious. U need to b aware of which side of your body and which muscles r often 'sleeping' and make a conscious effort to utilise them when u run. This means no longer 'switching off' when u run but to always be technically aware during each run.

If your left side is always tighter, then u need to make a conscious effort to activate your right side to balance up. U can't expect those muscles to just activate and operate evenly with yr other side just because u have spent a lot of time strengthening them. U also cannot expect your tigther side to just loosen up eventually just because u have spent months stretching religiously.

U need to learn what is neutral posture for your physique and adopt that posture in all daily activites. This will lead to loosening of tight and overworked muscles, and the proper firing of dormant and neglected muscles.

The reason why I recommended clockwise track running many months back on this board is so that u can sense what firing the muscles on the other side of your body FEELS like. The key is to GET THE FEEL, NOT JUST TO DO THE EXERCISES. This is to re-establish mind-muscle connection. Only then will we make firing of those dormant muscles a habit. And we need to keep on working at it for the rest of our lives.

We assume every one knows by instinct how to walk, how to run, that we all have distinctive styles. But the truth is that modern man is very uncoordinated compared to our more ancient counterparts. We r way more sedentary and way less rugged. We live in polluted cites and busy schedules and thus have very little awareness of our body. We r constantly bombarded with sensory overload and few of us really know what it means to "listen to your body," because we SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW HOW.

Like it or not, this loss of coordination is partly the fruition of living in this high-tech, fast food, instant gratification society. This has adversely affected our bio-motor skills. Ever wonder why poorer nations tend to produce better athletes?

To regain a better sense of your body and its needs with regards to movement and muscle firing, we need to SLOW DOWN. Not just in terms of progressing in our running, but more so in terms of your pace of living. When u run, it can no longer be a time to process your worries and anxieties. These must be put aside. Rather it must be an activity done consciously and with deliberate intent, sustained under control and with technical awareness. RUNNING NEEDS TO BE PERFORMED FOR RUNNING'S SAKE.

Another point to add regarding the gluteus medius and adductors is that if you tend to point your feet or knees outward when u run, your glute med is not being activated to support your hip laterally. This stresses ITB and TFL and peroneals. In this position, the adductors r also not firing to stabilise the hip medially and they become strained as a result of the awkward lateral pull of the hip by the ITB/TFL.

So even if u train yr glute med religiously, the loss of coordination remains. What u need to do is to consciously activate your adductors (and inner hamstrings) to constantly shift your thighs close together when u walk/run, resulting in a more forward-pointing knee/foot. This positioning of the hips will best activate the gluteus medius on the outside and the adductors on the inside.

During track curve running esp left turns, the right leg tends toward an outward swing and will often step away from the body's mid-line, while the left leg will shift closer the midline and may even cross it. If u do not make conscious effort to keep your right leg as close to your centre of mass as possible, and to prevent your left leg from crossing the midline, you will overstrain your left ITB/TFL/peroneals/tibialis/4th & 5th foot metatarsals, and fail to fire your right gluteus medius and adductors. Your right quadratus lumborum will also shorten and this eventually creates a short left leg with a lower left pelvis.

We need to constantly work at getting our movement right, in conjunction with all the strength and stability and flexibility work, or else there is no true permanent cure.

I don't agree with this at all. We have a default that we fall into, and stretching and strengthening help, but that is not the solution.

Weak right glute max. Will cause you to fall back into a sit down position when standing on right leg. You have to use your hamstrings, psoas and back muscles to get back up. You are falling so far back your glute med ITB become tight. Your pelvis is pulled back on the right because of this. These tight muscles give you the sense of this leg being stronger. As I said some parts are. Your main stabilizer is not. There is 65 % of the problem. When you do the retro stars your glute max on the left kicks in. Now you found the other 35%. Get as low as you can on the stairs leaning forward. Feel that sucker stretch. Kick that left hip out as far as you can. Come up slow. Do it 40 more times. Your left glute max is so tight your hamstrings become weak and the TFL and quad get way overworked to put the pelvis level. Remember what position it is in on your right leg. You will never get your left glute med to get strong enough to pull your pelvis back up. Your TFL and glute max have to help. As long as your glute max is weak on the right your left glute med will be weak on the left. Something has to pull the pelvis back up on the next stride. I cant say if running reverse is the right or wrong thing to do, but I sure no when they put some muscle function device on me and had me run on the track counter clockwise my right glute max never kicked in. How can you shift lateral to the left if you are always so far right? How come your weight seems to be on the right leg? Strengthen that right glute max.Do retro stairs on the left. Take 6 weeks off of running. You can’t strengthen your right if you are always fall back on it. If I where to put a tack in your shoe and walk around with it in for a whole week. You would start to limp, but by the 7th day you would have found a way to walk without it hurting. The weight would get shifted off of the tack. If we then took the tack out it would take 3 weeks for you to reprogram your brain to walk normal again. Your brain would still try to take pressure off of the tack that is no longer in there.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work closely with Bob Kennedy's trainer for OVER 2 YEARS in Indianapolis doing rigorous therapy and strengthening, including the whole gamut of massage, graston, hip leveling, patellar mobilizations, stretching, core/strength work focusing on gluts/adductors, trying different shoe lifts/inserts, various taping methods for my hip, knee, and feet--- everything and anything. He sent me to several doctors, had my leg length scanned, brought in an SI joint specialist for me...You name it and he tried it to figure out what was going on with my leg. I saw Sara Slattery come in to work with this guy, also Sarah Schwald...Pascal Dobert was an apprentice to this guy who took his methods to Wisconsin and currently uses the strengthening program on their track teams--- many great runners sought out this person. I'm not saying this guy is the be-all end-all, but just that he is very credible and highly respected and if solving my injury was as easy as strengthening and correcting for muscle imbalances/tightnesses, this guy would have been able to fix me after all that time... but he wasn't.

Something else is going on and that is the involvement of the nerves. If your muscle is not getting the proper signal from a nerve, it can't be strengthened properly.

Go see Ron Hruska at the Hruska clinic in Lincon Nebraska.It cant hurt you.You have spent an awful lot of time and money.Ron is a postural restoration expert.A lift is never the answer.Well it should not be.If he cant fix you he will tell you.

I'm in the same boat as you. After 2+ years of trial and error, I am fairly confident that this is not something that can be fixed by stretching/strengthening (for me at least). You name the exercise or routine, and I've done it or something similar to it. I have even switched to full-time minimalism as one poster suggested and it hasn't made any difference.

It has to be something internal, neuromuscular.

I am going to follow jaguar1's advice and try acupuncture to see if it makes any difference. It can't hurt.

Does grass running help?At any time during your run do you feel normal?Do you feel it when walking,sitting at your desk mowing the lawn? If you answered no to any one of these questions it is a muscle imbalance.

Grass running helps me. In fact I feel pretty much normal on grass unless I'm having a particularly bad day. I never feel normal during a run, although I used to when this problem first started. I sometimes feel awkward while walking around. I think the muscle imbalances that cause me to feel awkward from start to finish developed due to trying to run through the original problem, whatever that may be. It's probably another muscle imbalance somewhere, but my problem seems to be fairly unique in that my adductors are ridiculously tight and seize up on me as I run, as well as my quads (and in particular my left quad) feeling chronically weak and buckling inward.

Miss Osage County-

Is there anything different about your calf in your problem leg in comparison to your good leg? I know for me, in the leg with the nerve problem, my medial gastroc muscle is shorter than in my other leg, almost as if it's balled up. The muscle fibers feel really knotted and it feels like there may be scar tissue in there, but I'm not really sure. I can't seem to massage it out myself. Perhaps you have a trigger point in your calf that is hitting the nerve?

ive been following this topic for awhile because i experienced this problem for a while before a combo of different shoes, the gym, stretching and foam rolling settled the issue down. im still always afraid its going to flare up again. i believe that the problem with this loss of coordination in the leg is that it is a symptom of many different ailments. kind of like how a fever is a symptom of many different problems ranging from the flu to a bug bite. some people might have this problem and it is caused by muscle imbalance for instance and then other people may have it because of their footstrike. i dont think any one thing will work for everyone and a trial and error process prolly will work best. does anybody else agree with this theory?

i don't think it's neuromuscular since my leg started to improve even before i did any exercises to get muscles firing

Miss Osage County-

The manual therapist you've talked to seems to have a good rationale for what is going on. I've read a couple of your recent posts and it sounds like she/he has you doing a lot of the right things, especially with the nerve glides. I was curious if they had tried any hip mobilizations with you, specifically hip scouring. I know you may not know what these terms mean, but if a therapist is performing it and does it too hard on a sensitive piriformis, it will feel like you got shot in the butt (personal experience from PT school).

It can be challenging to differentiate between lumbar radiculopathy symptoms and piriformis/sciatic symptoms.

Usually nerve symptoms in general progress starting with sensory changes (numbness, tingling, etc) to motor changes ( loss of coordination,localized weakness)to severe pain with the worst types.

I also think half the battle is even if a doctor can make the expensive diagnosis, how do you go about treating. Purely doing exercises obviously doesn't work for everyone based on some of the testimonials here. My own personal bias is that a PT that treats with exercise and manual therapy (and not just soft tissue massage, Graston, ASTYM)has a better chance for a positive outcome. I'll comment more on differences between lumbar radiculopathy, piriformis syndrome, compartment syndrome, hip scouring, etc. later when I have more time.

My friend, this "default" that we all fall back upon is the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!

Unless u r willing to unlearn bad postural and movement patterns and habits, u will continue to activate some muscles while neglecting others, just because u feel more comfortable. The price to pay for not identifying yr faults and changing will b far higher than to take that effort to see what feels 'natural' yet is in reality harming u daily.

Take the common sidelying straight leg raise exercise, meant to activate the gluteus medius, as an example. The correct way to execute the exercise is to point the toes of the exercising leg down towards the ground as u lift the leg up and then lower it. If u let the toes point straight ahead or even diagonally outwards, u activate some other muscles in yr hip as well, including the TFL and quadriceps.

Ask yourself this question: Why do so many do this exercise and yet do not get well?

Is it not because when they get on with their every day living, they assume that since they have done the work, the glute med ought to activate by itself? Yet this does not happen, as evidenced by the past 28 pages of testimonies. Why is this so, since this is the muscle that so many experts point out as key to this coordination problem?

This is because we do not walk and run daily with our feet/knees positioned in the manner that they r when we were doing glute med exercises!

We don't do that because it doesn't 'feel natural', because it violates what is our 'default' gait and movement habits!

Just try it out for yourself and u will see that as u change the way yr feet r positioned, yr entire body up north will also need to re-adjust itself. U will realise that ytr shoulders r rounded, neck craned, back rounded, butt 'swayed back', knees too straight and locked, and all these will make a standing position with feet pointed forward or slightly inwards feel very unnatural!

In order to accomodate this new feet position, one which activates yr glute med, u will need to undo all that poor posture up north! U will b surprised at how much better u will feel, and u will breathe better. U will run better too!

You are my Yoda

Let’s unlearn what we have learned. He is 100% right. If you tend to fall back on your right glute which is what I think is so many problems, it will not matter how strong we are your pelvis will not stay there. I ran a marathon 4 weeks ago. I just said the hell with it. I will run with limp. I moved to grass whenever I could. It felt normal at the time. My left leg had no coordination. I could not wait to see myself on video afterwards. I wanted to see after 26 miles how bad my left leg looked. I could barely move it at the end. It would not bend. I ran 2:52 on 1 hip. The thing was my left leg was as straight as an arrow. No shifting left at all. I sat back way way back on the right. My right glute is so weak. I have to pull my body up with my left glute med on the next stride. That muscle is not that powerful to do this. It needs help. My TFL and hamstrings on the left were tight as all hell. What muscles do you think helped raise my pelvis when the glute med finally gave up? When I looked at my pelvis in the mirror afterwards my whole body weight was on the right. That day I started my glute max exercises ON THE RIGHT. My body weight today has shifted to the left. Also my glute med on the left is beginning to fire as well.I am doing very little on that. My TFL on the left is not activated as much either. The pelvis looks 100% better.My periformis and right glute med are not as tight either.

How is everyone doing?