Help me with leg length discrepancy

Which leg is shorter?

eijfiojf wrote:

Which leg is shorter?

My left leg is shorter which is also the leg where I have pain. The injury is in my medial tibial area

My left leg is shorter too. I wonder if this was caused by running track when I was growing?

I had (and might still have) a LLD of about 3/8" which caused me troubles in high school and college. My sports orthopedist told me to buy some of those cheap flat insoles you can get at drugstores and put a few of those in the shoe of my short leg. Seemed to help a bit.

One thing to know is if your discrepancy is caused by an actual skeletal length difference or a muscle imbalance. I think mine was the latter because I don't have any of the issues any more. Doing certain exercises like hip hikes and making sure to stretch all of the tissues that could affect your hips help as well.

I have half an inch difference. Here's what I did:

I loaded my short leg with lots of weight, barbell or olympic bar and did extra sets of single leg squats on the leg.

Don't wear orthos on your short leg, they just get you injured.

I wear an extra layer of sock on my short leg and tape the heal and ball of the foot sometimes.

I also put longer spikes in the shoe of the short leg when I race.

Thats about all I can do. I haven't had any problems and 1/2 inch is pretty big.

I did look into bone surgery that would have cracked my growth plate for a few weeks and kept me out of running for 3 months but I decided against it.

I have heard of this other method called LSLJ where you can lengthen without surgery but it seems kind of shady.

Also, I tried free hanging my legs and putting weight on my short leg to lengthen or thicken the connective tissue/joints. It didn't do anything.

Get chiropractic care. Leg lengths are almost always caused by a tilted pelvis. The actual leg is uaully not that much longer. A chrio can get the pelvis back in position for you and - problem gone. A heel lift is also a good idea so you can run and walk straight. Go to a wellness chiro and they will take care of it for you. Also, have the chiro give you physical therapy after.

www.theTigerRunner.com

I have about an inch short left leg and scoliosis as a result. I don't recommend a lift l. I did the it for years though.

Realize your screwed and do hours of yoga at home on the ground at home. Good luck.

I was thinking of doing something like this but my shorter leg isnt weaker than my longer leg. I don't want one leg that is much stronger than the other

You can't tell how short your leg is unless you have a standing pelvis x-ray so you can measure across the tops of the femurs. There are anatomical short leg and physiological short legs. Anatomical short legs come from early growth plate closure or anomaly, possible from trauma. Physiological short legs are from muscle imbalances and pelvic tilt. Anything shy of 7mm difference is considered clinically insignificant. When it is over 7mm, and the difference is anatomical, you could qualify to get a heel lift if you meet certain criteria, the 2 biggest being 1) do you have a lumbar curvature with the apex of the lumbar curve on the side of the short leg 2) are the bodies of the lumbar spine rotated toward the side of the convexity of the curve. If you meet these 2 criteria AND have a discrepancy over 7mm, a lift could help. If you have no AP lumbar curve, and if your sacrum is level, or your convexity is on the opposite side of the short leg you still don't qualify for a lift as one would make your lumbar spine worse.

Do not let anyone give you a heel lift without getting an x-ray on your lower back and pelvis. Measuring with a measuring tape is not acceptable.

If the difference is anatomical, no exercises will fix it. There are a variety of reasons you could have a physiological short leg (hamstring tightness, quadratus tightness on one side of the low back, sacral or pelvic misalignment). Without knowing which, we can't really give you exercises to help. you will be wasting your time doing things that probably won't make the slightest difference.

Most likely caused by a psoas muscle that is in spasms and has pulled the pelvis out of alignment.

Go to the bottom of the page

http://www.julstro.com/what_happens_exactly/

Sometimes rest and stretching can take care of the issue but often a massage therapist is needed. When I was in high school, I went to an osteopath who could manipulate my pelvis back to alignment but didn't address the underlying cause which was simply an overuse injury. The psoas is one of the muscles that help lift the leg for each stride. It has amazed me all these years the lack of knowledge on this VERY COMMON problem.

I have about a half inch difference between my legs, which I think has made me more injury-prone over the years. I put a small heel lift under my short leg which part-way evens me out. (You can make one by cutting up an old shoe insole.) I find this is quite helpful.

slartibartfast wrote:

My sports orthopedist told me to buy some of those cheap flat insoles you can get at drugstores and put a few of those in the shoe of my short leg.

This is also what I did, except instead of insoles, I used "heel lifts". You can place one under your insole so you don't even feel it. When I raced in track spikes, I had to duct-tape the heel lift to the top of the insole, because the insole was unremoveable.

I swear the heel lift must have worked because I never got injured again after starting use.

I had a bunch of foot problems before figuring out that I have about a 3/8" difference. Like others, I now put an old running shoe insole (sometimes 2) in my short leg's shoe. I really don't think you can overdo the stretching of calves, quads, hip flexors, and glutes. Haven't had a recurrence in three years.

This is disputable. Unfortunately there isn't much agreement in the medical community about how to measure leg length. See this article for some idea of measurement accuracy. The problem with a using a standing X-ray is that it is difficult to use the tops of the femurs as points of reference do to femural torsion and/or discrepancies in the arches, etc. I do agree that rushing into a heel lift without multiple measurements and consults is very unwise.

Sorry to pick at your post. The rest of your info seems on point and much saner and accurate than many of the other posters! :)

(Physiotherapy Theory & Practice 2013 Aug;29(6):487-92.

Validity of measuring leg length with a tape measure compared to a computed tomography scan.)

eijfiojf wrote:

My left leg is shorter too. I wonder if this was caused by running track when I was growing?

I guess will wait forever for someone to answer this question. I don't think runner want to address this issue which is so common?