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

My leg feels very normal, no aches or sensation of weakness.

Although lets say I did a morning run, if I go and do an afternoon run (even if at easy pace), during the warm-up and first few minutes of run itself, the leg will feel rather weird. I don't get the loss of coordination but for those first minutes it will feel like the leg is weaker when compared to my left (good) one.

After a few minutes the sensation disappears and I'll do my training normally.

Bump. May as well have one sensible thread up here.

in my case, injury girl, my leg feels completely normal in all other situations and ranges of motion except the very specific task of running, forward. i can run in place with no noticeable symptoms and so far can do all other forms of cross training and exercise. and even when i do attempt to run it *feels* normal in the sense that it is not numb or sore, but its like its not allowing me to use it properly. i feel off balance and as if that leg is dragging (which it does sometimes....my foot scuffs the ground). for what its worth i decided to stop running entirely for a couple of months. it seemed like it was getting better (just by testing it out by, for instance, jogging across parking lot) so i started to test out a few short (1-2 mile) runs. it felt a lot better at first but after a few attempts at trying to run that distance i noticed it was getting worse again. i am now back to not running at all. and will take a longer break this time and hope that helps. wondering if anyone else is having any success with anything else?

I know this post is old but I have some light for you guys. My sister struggled with this problem for 3 years and no one knew what she was talking about and some people said it was all in her mind. In the beginning when this all happened it was bad her leg would spasm out (especially during the longer runners and intervals) and she felt like her left leg was stronger than her right and that her right leg felt lighter and that she could had no control over it. And she had other similar syntopms as you guys. I'm pretty sure that taking off time from running in the beginning is good but sometimes it doesn't do anything. Anyways after taking some time off from running she started working with our school's strength and conditioning coach and he said it was all coming from her hips ( even though she felt like it wasn't ) and that her hips were weak. After doing hip strengthening for about 7 months she has gotten so much better and the feelings she was feeling are getting better and better everyday. Only certain exercises made the feelings feel better. And it's werid because a year of pt didn't help but this did. I guess you have to find then main source of the problem to fix it. Just remember there is hope in everything and your never going through anything alone .

Keep your hips forward, because when they rotate backwards, anterior pelvic tilt, you get all of the above thousand plus posts mentioned problems

Here it is explained and demonstrated simply:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=anterior+pelvic+tilt&safe=active&biw=1024&bih=702&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CCIQsARqFQoTCLrNyNG0-cgCFQG5FAodj64GUw

Y'all're welcome, get well soon.

I haven't checked this message board in awhile, as I feel I am well on my road to recovery. It's been a long and frustrating road, but I have definitely made progress. I have a few prior posts, but I just want to share my understanding that it is a brain issue. The brain's recruitment of muscles for running (for me it also impacted walking) are not correct. So, there can be an over-recruitment, which explains why if I really focused on relaxing I could sometimes keep things together longer. However, when running fast too many neural connects get called upon and it turns into a mess! I have been working to activate certain muscles, while seeking to inhibit others. I also had extremely poor torso rotation, which got corrected 2 times and has stuck for months. Others areas of focus have been proprioception and laterality (left, right awareness/coordination). I have studied this immensely and can recommend information by the following: The Gait Guys; Gray Cook; Evan Osar; and Upright Health. They all have alot of information on-line and if you can find a provider who embraces their functional approach you may well find relief. Although I have had no pain with my loss of coordination, "Explain Pain" by Butler and Mosely also helped me gain a better understanding of brain functioning and this idea of "smudging." Youtube has relevant video. I know several others have come forward and made progress, so this thread is no longer as depressing as it used to be! For those that need it, I offer you hope!

Hello Katie. I did the previous post, sharing other peoples advice. Here is my own opinion.

I agree with your point about it being a brain/muscle recruitment issue.

I also must stress that it is important to run with the pelvis in the right postion, because sometimes we slouch without realising it. When I do this and correct my slouch, I run faster and much easier.

This also seems to me to be a common problem at this time of year, when the weather is getting colder and our muscles can tense up more. When it's warm we can run with more muscle stiffness which gives us more power and uses less energy. Trying to do this in cold weather puts too much strain on the most vulnerable muscles which run along the sciatic nerve. To protect the nerve, our muslces go into spasm.

Recently I have been having pain, but have regained co-ordination, but still have some pain. I can work through it, but knowing that I am not causing any long term damage with bad posture helps put my mind at rest.

Thanks for this article and executive summary, Northern Star.

I'm a 28 year old female runner in the UK and have had the exact issues you describe re loss of leg coordination in my left leg for the past 1.5 years. I got my qualifying time for London Marathon at a marathon in April in 2014 then *bam* ever since, I can't run without the dreaded "jelly leg". It was originally only when doing speed work, particularly on the track, and in races. I had some time off running to see if it helped but the rest actually made it worse and I now find that I'm virtually not running at all as it kicks in at any speed after about 10 minutes or so. Strength work hasn't drastically helped, but it's good to read the article and see that others have had this and have adapted their running type/distances/events - I'm feeling now like I need to build back up and retrain my body to do some more distance (without the loss of coordination kicking in) and then hoping that the speed will follow one day. As with others in your article, this is confined to running as swimming and cycling is completely ok.

I've forwarded the article to my physiotherapist too.

Thanks again, and good luck to anyone suffering with this horrible "injury" (If I can call it that!).

Is the exercise kind of like this?

I know it has been a while, but may I ask what kind of exercises your sister does for the hip?

I too have issues with the recruitment of my right hip.

When I do stuff like clam shells and adductor leg raises, my right hip just doesn't fire as well as the left one. It also doesn't fire well on my run, and I attribute it to my "loss of coordination".

Actually we found that its not just a hip requirement problem, Its a glute problem. She started doing glute strength exercises, combined with the hip exercises, and has found even more success. Her glutes on her weak leg were not firing. Particularly they found that her glutes medias was not activating compared to the other side. It makes sense because she kept thinking that just the hip was the problem, but her trainer pointed out that glute strength should be done. Because, the glutes are the stabilizers and huge muscles that would affect the coordination. The exercises you just described are actually also glutes medias exercises, you may have a weakness there also that makes it hard to complete the exercises. I think maybe you should start doing glute strength geared on your weaker side. Also when you do these exercises make sure you're doing the exercise right and focused on ACTIVATING THE GLUTE. Also do 5 SECOND HOLDS when you do each rep. Some exercises that she does are Single leg bridges, single leg squats, wall squats,kick backs, fire hydrants, hip hikes, standing hip 45 degree (abduction/extension), single leg toe touches, single leg box jumps, stationary side steps with band, glute sets (just squeezing the glute muscle teaching it to activate). Plus the clam shells and hip abductions that you do. I Hope this helps you

Wise guy wrote:

I know it has been a while, but may I ask what kind of exercises your sister does for the hip?

I too have issues with the recruitment of my right hip.

When I do stuff like clam shells and adductor leg raises, my right hip just doesn't fire as well as the left one. It also doesn't fire well on my run, and I attribute it to my "loss of coordination".

I just cannot express my gratitude enough towards your help and generosity. It does shed some light on my problem.

Having done some real glute and hip work and massaged the hell out of the gluteal and hip area and ITB/TFL for 2 days, things have improved dramatically!

Yesterday I just did a 50-minute easy run without the occurance of the loss of coordination (except when going uphills, which I know differs from lots of sufferers of this grinding condition here. I seem to do worse on uphills, especially upstairs).The trick is, I have to make a conscious effort in using the glute, and the same goes for the strengthening exercises.And I feel my speed is coming back, even though I still can't run fast for long (i.e:tempo is still out of question).

I think I have a really weak glute, 20 reps of donkey kicks already wear me out.

Apart from the weak glute, improper firing pattern/sequence also seems to contribute to the problem. Normally it should be glute-to-hamstring, but mine is the opposite hamstring-to-glute, and I realized it while doing prone leg lifts.

And I also suspect I have some osteitis pubis as well, which might to the adductor tightness and also the sensation of loss of coordination I have experienced for months because I hurt my groin in 2014 and since then it has been pretty weak and there has been some sort of tightness once in a while on my runs.

Anyway, thank you so much for the advice, and hopefully within months I can get better as much as your sister has improved.

You are welcome, i'm glad you have had improvement! I'm sure much more improvement will come in the future.

Also i think maybe you should add some groin strength exercises like straight leg raises and isometric ball squeezes.

Best of luck!!

Hey everyone,

I found mostly a cure for my loss of coordination in my leg.

I started running when I was 13 and was fairly successful (19:50 5km when 13, 4:52 1500 when 14) but when I got to grade 9 I started having hip problems. I could not extend and I felt like i was limping. It could happen 5 minutes into a run or 40 minutes and I stopped improving a lot. I started doing triathlon because I was frustrated and still had this problem. At 20 years old I only ran sub 18 for 5km yet I was running sub 20 when I was 13. Physiotherapists told me it was tight hip flexors or my glutes and they just said to stretch more. Nothing changed. I started seeing a sports chiro and she started me on a strength program and it helped but I was still having problems. I was running a couple weeks ago and I realized my butt stuck out a lot when i ran and my hips were not in a neutral position. Thanks to my strengthening I was able to bring my hips forward more and running faster feels easier and my hip dysfunctions were gone for the most part. I found that running without my hips in a neutral position caused strain on my hip extensors and my glutes weren't firing. Try putting your leg backwards with your hips in a neutral position versus an anterior pelvic tilt and you will feel the difference of when your glutes activate. I am not sure if this will help other people but maybe try it out. I have had this problem for 6 years and I am starting to find out how to fix it.

Hey all,

I've been experiencing this problem for over 8 years. Am now in the process of overcoming it.

I've got a leg length discrepancy, shallow hip sockets, and am super flexible. Suspect these are contributing factors.

The root of my problem has been weak hips. The body is an amazing thing; I've been able to perform on them athletically for over 40 years, due to some massive compensation and adjustment of normal movement patterns (all this invisible until the problem appeared).

Essentially, I 'hinged' (flexed and extended) my left hip not with the deep rotators/hamstring/glute but about six inches down from the pelvic crest, in the quad. Was 150% quad dominant in left leg for who knows how many decades. With the quad active (and hyperactive) through most of the gait cycle, I couldn't dorsiflex the foot properly, which in turn led to a host of deactivation all the way back up the chain.

Am now working hard on remapping the pattern. It's taken 6 months of every other day single side hip and leg activation exercises (80 minutes worth), fast walking on a steep incline, and mindfully coaxing the quad to relax through the swing, and let the proper muscles take over. Piece by piece the bad left leg (and its enabler, the right leg) is coming back online, but I still have a long way to go.

A hip surgeon told me I need labral repair. A peripheral nerve surgeon released my peroneal nerve to no effect at all. A dystonia expert offered drugs.

What has worked for me is getting my hips to work properly, individually. And being patient. It's not an easy fix but it's coming along.

I havent read the whole thread but this happens to me very often. Sometimes I can't even do high knees or warmups because my leg is weak. Once it happened before a meet, and I was desperate so I took an ibuprofen. Within 30 mins I was 100% back to normal. I have no idea why it works, but every time this happens and I use an ibuprofen, it goes away. I am guessing it is neuromuscular, at least in my case.

hey ... is anyone still active on this message board? I have been dealing with this issue for over two years and am just finding this.

I still check back on this thread a few times a month since I've been dealing with it for 2+ years now. I get "realigned" by our athletic trainers at school nearly every day and have been consistently doing hip/glute strengthening for a year straight now and my condition just keeps getting worse. I'm starting to get back pain now. I ran 25:17 for an XC 8k my sophomore year and am now a senior and have to drop out around 2 miles of every race since I can't control the leg enough to go quick enough to keep up. I'm about to lose my spot on the travel squad if I don't get a quick fix in the next few weeks. Crappy way to cap off a very sub-par collegiate career.

im so sorry :( i know how incredibly frustrating it is. I'm getting a brain scan this month and a nerve conduction test in January. From what I've read, these tests aren't really going to reveal much, but it's a starting point, from an MD's POV.