A Passion for Running

Welcome to the home of Mark aka The Running Blogfather – a 40 year-old dad, husband and marathon runner who’s beaten injury and is on the comeback trail!

my legs are the same length

passion for running category: running on Friday, October 28 2005

You ever wonder about the impression you leave on people who arrive at your blog for the very first time? For example, I get a lot of hits from google. Often the searches that bring people here are relevant to my babblings, while other times, they have next to nothing to do with what I have to offer. The latter scenario makes me wonder more about what these new visitors think.

Take today’s title for example. my legs are the same length. That title would make ZERO sense to a new visitor.

Hi new visitor. Welcome. This blog is about running. Today’s title is due to the fact that I’ve had some niggling quasi-injuries and one possible cause I’ve been investigating is that my legs may be of different length.

There. I feel better. Now, back to my regular six-person audience (I love you guys). I just wanted to tell you that I had my massage therapist check my leg length. She says they are spot-on the exact same length. However, she also said I definitely favor my right leg. Funny because people like Jon noticed that in pictures of me standing like, a year ago.

So, there is a strength/muscular imbalance between my legs. Could also still be a hip alignment thing. More investigation is required.




7 Comments

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Comment by runr53

Sunday October 30, 2005 @

The “leg length” discrepancy that most people refer to is almost always a muscular or tendon thing and very rarely a skeletal thing, that said, it is a changing thing also. Hips play a very large role in the length of the legs at any given time. Good Luck with that!

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Comment by tarheeltri

Sunday October 30, 2005 @

I’ve often wondered the same thing about leg length though I didn’t do a search for it to find your blog. My right foot is verifiably a 1/2 size smaller than my right for whatever that’s worth. Nice blog!

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Comment by tarheeltri

Sunday October 30, 2005 @

right smaller than the left that is!

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Comment by tarheeltri

Sunday October 30, 2005 @

right smaller than the left that is!

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Comment by Deene

Monday October 31, 2005 @

sure, Mark, you just enjoy teasing the pervy Googlers ;)

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Comment by Cassie

Tuesday November 01, 2005 @

eager to see what you find out too. I favor my right leg- the PT says a definite muscular imbalance. Trying to fix it but man it takes time and patience.

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Comment by Scott

Wednesday November 02, 2005 @

I had to stop running four years ago because of pain in my right foot and groin. Last fall I had to stop riding my bike because of pain in the right leg, hip, and butt. This spring the pain progressed into my lower and upper back. After reading several articles on Leg Length Discrepency I noticed that my right leg seemed to have more pressure on it, which was felt from my foot up through the entire length of my body. For years I’ve been compensating by leaning to my right, even though my torso wanted to lean to the left (my short leg side)I installed a couple of extra insoles into my left shoe, an immediately I felt more balanced, level and equalized pressure on both legs. I ended up having an x-ray taken which revealed that my left femur is 5MM shortet than the left, referred to as anatomical LLD. I found a chiropractor that specializes in measuring and correcting LLD with custom flexible orthortics, made by footlevelers. He has a specific way of taking an x-ray to determine LLD. He takes them in a standing position. He takes three seperate shots, one at the knee joint, one at the acetabulum and one at the iliac crest. End result for me was a 7MM (1/4) difference. The other 2MM are my left foot overpronating. The real good news for me. I’ve been wearing the ortho’s with the built in lift for about three weeks. All the pain that’s built up in me, all on my right side for the past four years is going away. At this pointin my recvery he has me doing three 25 minute walks per day with five one minute jog intervals in the middle part of my walk. NO PAIN when I run or walk!! Prior to seeing this chiro I saw a Physical Therapist and one other chiro, neither of them believed that LLD was the cause of my problem. I knew it was, cause I could feel the difference when I used me make shift heel lifts. My point is, your message therapist may not know how to accurately test for LLD. Whe the body is in a supine relaxed position and LLD can virtually dissapear. Try this, stand and put your thumbs on top of your iliac(hips) crest and move from side to side a little, get the feel of your hips moving up and down. Come to a stop with both feet planted flat. Do you feel like one thumb is resting lower than the other? If so slightly lift up the heel on the side you feel is short. Does it level out your hips? I’m a 42 year old male that extremely active…prior to my injury that prevented me from running I was a 40-50 mile per week runner that participated in all race distances from 5K to marathons. I also do Triathlons…2/3 when I lost the ability to run and lots of other activities. I’d hate to see someone suffer the same thing I went through because of an undiagnosed LLD. The back pain I lived with for the past six months has been crippling. My recovery will take some time because my LLD was diagnosed so late, All the soft tissue on my right side has been compressed and stressed for years, but I denitiely feel I’m on the road to a full recovery.

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