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

The REASON glute medius strengthening is important is because it keeps the knee centered over the middle toe during toe-off.

I bet your problem leg has these following characteristics:

-terrible flexibility in dorsiflexing the big toe

-weakness and imbalance doing a one-legged squat

-if you have ever skated, an inability to stop properly on that side

The glude medius strengthening will keep the knee from turning inward during the push off phase. When you push off and the knee turns in, it causes a reaction in a nerve in your leg that feels like you can't control the leg, and that it's doing its own thing.

good points but what if the stucture of the hip joint is what causes the internal rotation? (femoral anteversion?) So glute med exercises can help compensate but the bad leg is always going to get internal rotation because of how the joint sits in the hip socket.

SOLVED wrote:

The REASON glute medius strengthening is important is because it keeps the knee centered over the middle toe during toe-off.

I bet your problem leg has these following characteristics:

-terrible flexibility in dorsiflexing the big toe

-weakness and imbalance doing a one-legged squat

-if you have ever skated, an inability to stop properly on that side

The glude medius strengthening will keep the knee from turning inward during the push off phase. When you push off and the knee turns in, it causes a reaction in a nerve in your leg that feels like you can't control the leg, and that it's doing its own thing.

I have been following this thread since the beginning due to having similar mechanical problems as some of you have. Looking at what "solved" just wrote, there may be something else you might want to check out: functional hallux limitis.

With FHL, the first metatarsal joint does not function correctly. The 1st MTP joint is the joint leading to the big toe. When you stride forward all of your body weight is supposed to hinge forward over this joint and it is suppposed to support your foot and body and raise your heel through the gait cycle. Unfortunately if you have FHL the 1st MTP joint cannot do its job and the body attempts all sorts of compensations to try to correct itself. Basically the joint works fine until it is weight-bearing, then the toe goes rigid and does not dorsiflex. I found out that I have this. On one of my legs the foot then pronates and turns out, the knee turns in, and I get all sorts of back and hip problems. All the glute med stregnthening in the world did not fix the toe problem. There is a simple solution when using insoles or orthotics. I am in the process of twisting my body back after years of these imbalance problems.

There is a video showing how to test for this and other information here:

http://recoveryourstride.blogspot.com/2010/06/functional-hallux-limitis.html

It may be something worth checking out for some of you.

Any luck with the new insoles? I made a make-shift one for my right foot and will test it tonight. I had given up doing any exercises on my leg for the last few months and have just been running once a week. I am starting to get the itch to train again and am going to take another shot at fixing my stride.

If you've read this entire forum, you know I've posted before, telling the story of how it completely fixed my daughter's leg coordination problem to correct her stride. I'm very happy to see that you plan to tackle your stride as well. Changing one's stride is NOT a particularly easy thing to do which is probably why so many people never attempt it. It doesn't feel natural so one must force themselves to stick with it. It took my daughter a few weeks to get to the point where the new stride seemed natural and no longer felt difficult to maintain. But it was SO worth it in the end.

At this juncture I think an update on my daughter's situation is warranted. Her leg coordination problem is clearly behind her as the corrected stride distributes the forces on her body in a healthier way. However, it seems the encouragement to fix one's stride, especially for higher mileage runners, needs to come with one word of caution. This is a very sudden shift of forces. Everything looked great for my daughter at first but frustrating bouts of tendonitis began to pop up. She'd never had this problem before. Realizing the guy that helped her resolve the leg coordination problem might have some insight into this new problem, I made a call. He gave me the name of a very athlete centric chiropractor and suggested we explain the sequence of events to him. It took this chiropractor all of 5 minutes to hone in on the source of the problem and make some quick adjustments that halted the tendonitis problem. The body has a tendency to try to shift back to what it has become use to so a couple followup appointments were needed.

The doc explained that fixing one's stride is golden IF one's body is in good alignment. But if out of alignment, it can create new/bad forces on the body, as it did in my daughter's case. For the high mileage runner, even a small misalignment can create big problems.

So as you perfect your stride, keep this story in mind. If odd new pains/injuries result it doesn't mean you should return to a bad stride. Instead, find yourself an athlete centric chiro for a tune up. It can make a world of difference.

I came across this thread after MUCH research! Several years ago, my wife who is a runner, including Chicago and New York marathons, started having problems with what seemed to be her foot. She felt like she didn't know where it was going to land. It was so much of a problem that she couldn't run outside and stuck with a treadmill so she could hold on. We made many visits to physical therapists, neurologists in our area, in our state, and even at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester; still no one knew what was causing the problem. The only things the tests yielded was that she was in excellent shape.

I stumbled across this "loss of leg coordination" forum and it caught my attention and I think I have read every post. Many of the posts describe what my wife's is experiencing, but the one thread that was enlightening was the suggestion about a labral hip tear. It made the most sense because I knew her problem was not neural...even though some non-runner neurologists seemed to imply that it was "all in her head"...not directly of course!

So I copied some of the posts and gave them to our family doctor. She thought it deserved investigating, and after a week, called to say that no one locally could handle this (just like in one of the posts) but that her office would find someone. After another week, they called to say they were referring my wife to a Med Sports Clinic in Ann Arbor, MI. That visit resulted in a doctor's suggestion that mirrored one of the posts: they would schedule a test where my wife would try to run first, then her hip would be injected, and then she would try to run to see if there is any difference. And guess what? It made a difference! Prior to this injection, she couldn't run more that 15-20 steps and just today she took her first run (on a soft surface) and easily made it about 30 minutes!

She has an appointment in Ann Arbor this week and we are hoping to hear that the next step will be an arthrogram test to verify a labral hip tear. (like was suggested in one of the posts) IF there is anyone reading this post who has had the procedure to repair a labral hip tear, we would appreciate hearing about the procedure and recovery experince!

4078jcrs- search "labral tears runners" and you will find lots of threads from this forum and others that will take days to read through! I have been reading this thread from the beginning because much of it matched my stride problems. I finally had to stop running in September. I didn't like the MRI (too claustrphobic) as they wanted to check for a labral tear and now the orthopaedist says I probably don't have a labral tear (after 5 minutes with me) yet I still can't run (she said I just have a touch of arthritis...right!). I recall reading about the injection before getting an MRI and was disappointed when the MRI people didn't give me one. I had read something about this sometimes helping a tear on some people (at least for awhile). Did your wife just get the injection without an MRI? Refresh my memory, what was the injection again? All that the doctor now offered me was to see a physiatrist. I am waiting for an appointment. Never heard of these doctors before. If an injection alone could help this out, I would like to ask for me. Good luck to your wife. I hate the idea of surgery, but after reading all the threads on labral tears, I was willing to go that route if indeed it was the problem.

What you describe is very similar to what my wife has gone through! The neurologists (six different ones) she saw couldn't find anything that would explain the problem with her leg and didn't seem too interested in digging deeper because there wasn't "pain" and because my wife could walk, couldn't grasp the importance and desire to being able to run again. Thank goodness for this board!

From what we understand, the injection is the first setp to determine if there is a labral tear. If after the injection, there is a difference (in this case, my wife is able to run again - not perfect - but able to run on soft surfaces), then the next step would be the arthrogram test. She has her appointment this Friday so we are hoping to hear that the doctor will schedule the test. If it is a labral hip tear, arthroscopic surgery would be needed to repair the tear. Thanks for the good luck wishes!

question for anyone who has discovered that they have a labral hip tear: what does it feel like? i know there area few different types but where is the pain located and how would you describe it?

I'm the original poster from the previous page. As mentioned, we did the "experiment" back in June, where the cortisone injection in the hip joint provided complete relief. Going from a collapsing/wild leg one day to a stable leg a few days later was quite remarkable! It's October now, and I haven't had problems with the hip joint/crazy leg ever since, and I'm back up to almost normal marathon training! My gait has opened up, from the short choppy stride I had for a long time. In the meantime, I was approved for labral tear surgery in Vail, CO, but after consulting with lots of health professionals, we decided it was too risky to do and will only do it was a last resort if the hip problems come back. Apparently ~95% of the population will develop a labral tear in their lifetime, but of course not everyone experiences problems with it. Even if you do get problems, if the tear is small and barring any major bony impingements, the inflammation could go away on it's own with rest, rehab, or a little help from a small amount of cortisone.

On another note, I found out in July I also had inguinal hernias on both sides (to go along with the labral tear), so I got the surgery for this at the end of July. Apparently one of the hernias was pinching a major nerve that goes down the leg, so that may have been a large reason why the hip labrum got irritated. So all I gotta say is cover your bases cause there might be multiple things going on.

it's all in the hips wrote:

question for anyone who has discovered that they have a labral hip tear: what does it feel like? i know there area few different types but where is the pain located and how would you describe it?

I believe the tell-all sign is years of a short choppy stride, not being able to get much hip flexion/extension or stride out. Because of this gait, I haven't been able to race 5Ks/10Ks as well as I should be able to, but I've done very well in the marathon. Beside the shuffling gait, I didn't recognize the hip problem until the pain and inflammation arose-- deep, non-palpable pain (throbbing, dull, achiness) in the hip joint, which is 2-3 inches below the ASIS at the top/middle of the thigh. I had pain radiating to the groin, and then the leg would feel like it would give out and be unstable at times (like you're jarring the ground with each step, no shock absorption to the hip). It felt like the femoral head was jamming against the acetabulum (hip socket) with each step. It would get worse with high-intensity running but not so bad with marathon pacing or slower.

Does anyone here not have hip pain at all? I am nearly convinced my issue is in my lower leg and not my hip. I don't have any pain, and haven't had any throughout this whole problem. I do feel like I have limited hip flexion and extension but no pain. I also have the problem at all speeds fast and slow. Even if I shuffle as slow as possible the problem kicks in in a minute or two. The issue does seem slightly better on trails, leading me to believe the soft surface is easier on my lower leg.

That was one of the things that came up with every doctor we saw; there was no "pain" - at least as the doctors describe pain - so they discounted the problem. Runners seem to see aches as a normal part of running, and ice will take care of it!

I understand that each case is different, but in my wife's case, the symptoms began as the one foot scraping the ground, almost like a dragging effect, which went away after she got running for a while. Then it progressed to the point where it didn't go away. It was easier on soft surfaces; very difficult on hard surfaces. It became "loss of coordination in her leg" to the point where she didn't know where her foot would land, her leg would try to compensate by hyper-extending...and she was not able to run outside. Only on a treadmill inside. And it wasn't just running - when she walked her foot would scrape the ground slightly.

Doctors did MRI tests for her spine and then her leg (muscles and nerves) and rules out these areas as problems. Physical therapy focused on the foot and leg. When we went to the Mayo Clinic, after a thorough assessment, they focused on nerves. Nothing.

The injection of cortisone has been the ONLY thing that has made a difference. Evidently, the stability of the hip joint, or I should say lack of, can cause many quirky problems in the leg and foot. And in cases where there is "no hip pain" doctors don't focus on the hip. We seem to have found the right place - a Med Sports Clinic - where doctors are familiar - so far - with diagnosing a potential labral hip tear.

I'll keep that in mind. I had this problem a few years ago, had some work done on my shin and it went away. I was running a lot more then and a lot stronger. This time I got lazy once the problem kicked in and have just recently been getting treatment. I am going to try to loosen up my shin and calf as much as I can and see if it relieves any of the problem.

hey guys--it's been a while since I've posted, but here's an update. Been dealing with this problem for 6 years now and I just finished up my senior season of cross. It's been the first season where I've had almost no problems with my leg and I believe it's just been due to one exercise I've been doing. What you do is make an "X" with your body--one foot on the ground and one hand on the ground with the opposite leg and arm in the air. Do each side twice for thirty seconds, no rest in between reps. I don't know if this is exactly what's helped, but since I've started doing this religiously everyday, I've noticed a drastic improvement. This workout just seems to target all your stabilizer muscles at once. After you do it, you'll definitely feel fatigue everywhere. Hope this helps--best of luck to everyone.

Is this done on your side or while facing the ground?

Done on your side.

I'm not sure I understand your description of this "X" exercise. is there a video that demonstrates what you're talking about?

sorry about the poor description...the exercise looks like this:http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.physicalfitnet.com/exercise_video_library/thumbnails/320x240/673_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Fitness-Exercise/Workout-Series-Ankle-Weight-Exercises-IV.html&usg=__wHgi1x5EIvbx-PCQsDtHilIVjAA=&h=240&w=320&sz=10&hl=en&start=320&zoom=1&tbnid=QcsAXG04wabsCM:&tbnh=151&tbnw=245&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dside%2Bhip%2Bexercises%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D475%26tbs%3Disch:10,12232&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=163&vpy=119&dur=846&hovh=192&hovw=256&tx=201&ty=73&ei=QWPxTNWVKYWclgez0-TuDA&oei=W2LxTLueHoG88gag3ZWrCg&esq=37&page=35&ndsp=9&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:320&biw=1024&bih=475

but when I do it I extend my top arm.