This is a remedial principle, but it is always nice to capture it on video like this. Watch this clients left foot. On initial impressions you might just say too much foot pronation, and you would be right. Some of you might say abductor-adductor twist of the foot. These are all correct. But, if we told you that this was a hip complaint client, and lack of internal hip rotation this foot action should be a simple 60Watt “light bulb moment” (translation: “epiphany”), certainly not a 100Watt moment (but for some it might be).

This client cannot internally rotate through the hip adequately, so they have found the opposite end of the limb to internally rotate through. They collapse through the arch/tripod, which essentially in the crudest of analogies “internally screws the limb” into the ground. They are finding internal femur rotation through foot pronation. Internal hip rotation is being achieved from a bottom up process if you will. Pronation through the foot complex is adduction, medial rotation and plantarflexion of the talus which will carry the tibia (and thus the femur) with it into internal rotation. There is a problem in many clients who find that extra little bit of rotation at the hip via a foot/ankle cheat. That problem is one of corruption of the pelvis antiphasic motion of the pelvis, they will most often dump the same hip laterally and thus drift into the frontal plane instead of achieving the antiphasic motion of the pelvis. This will decouple the rotation of the torso in the opposite rotation of the pelvis, and thus begin the corruption of arm swing. Want to take it another level deeper ? Ok, eat this for lunch……. asymmetrical thoracic rotation from side to side will set up. This will mean more work through scapulothoracic stabilization and cervical rotation on the side of the thoracic rotation deficit. Still not deep enough ? Ok, evaluate their respiration symmetry. Too many are doing respiratory work before hip rotation is clean and symmetrical, especially during gait that necessitates 1000′s of engraining steps a day. If the hips are not clean, gait is not clean, and that means repetitive arm swing-thoracic-respiratory mechanics are not clean.

If you want to truly fix someones rooted problems, you have to be willing and able to go down the rabbit hole.

Shawn Allen, one of the gait guys

January 12, 2016 January 12, 2016/ The Gait Guys

When is a hamstring strain not a hamstring strain?We have always have found the quadratus femoris is one of, if not the, 1st hip muscle to become dysfunctional in hip pain patients. Perhaps it is due to it being the southern most stabilizer of the d… — When is a hamstring strain not a hamstring strain?
We have always have found the quadratus femoris is one of, if not the, 1st hip muscle to become dysfunctional in hip pain patients. Perhaps it is due to it being the southern most stabilizer of the deep 6. Long known as an adductor, but also external rotator, we find it is employed eccentrically when the foot the planted and people rotate to the same side as weight bearing, or people take a “sudden stumble” while running. It often mimics an insertional hamstring strain with regards to location. We were happy to see it is getting some of the attention it deserves : )

http://www.anatomy-physiotherapy.com/articles/musculoskeletal/lower-extremity/hip/1528-function-of-the-quadratus-femoris-and-obturator-externus

January 11, 2016 January 11, 2016/ The Gait Guys

What were they thinking? Oh, they weren’t thinking…

Here is a simple case of knowing your anatomy.

make sure to use the toggle bar to the right and left of the picture to see all the pictures : )

This woman came in with right sided lateral knee pain with hiking and skiing; worse with fatigue, better with rest. The pain was localized at the lateral joint line and at the tibial fibular joint.

She had been previously been diagnosed with tibial fibular hypermobility and subsequently had an arthrodesis (fusion) performed at that joint for knee pain. The surgery helped for a short time and a newer, slightly different pain developed.

Yes, she has a moderate genu valgus, R > L. Yes, she has a left, anatomically short (tibial) Left leg. Yes, she has has NO MOBILITY at the tib/fib articulation and the focus of pain is just above at the joint line and at the lateral aspect of the patello femoral joint.

The tibial fibular joint is a syndesmosis (not a true synovial or diarthrodial joint) that is supposed to have a a superio/inferior gliding motion (see diagram) with ankle dorsiflexion, due to the wedge shape of the talar dome and talo crural articulation. It also is supposed to have an anterior/posterior gliding movement at the superior aspect of the joint and a reciprocal movement in the opposite direction at the ankle (see diagram).

Whenever we take away movement in one area, it needs to occur somewhere else; in this case, at the femoral tibial joint and patello femoral joints.

Does it make sense that her left sided leg would cause hypermobility on the right side with a supinatory moment of the foot on the left to attempt to lengthen the leg and a pronatory movement of the foot on the right, in addition to valgus angulation of the joint on the right to attempt to “shorten” that extremity? Would this increased valgus angluation of the knee, in turn, cause abnormal, lateral, tracking of the patella? Wouldn’t the increased pronatory moment cause a more supple foot on that side with increased requirements for “push off” on that side with increased calf recruitment? Do you think that may impair proprioception on that side?

What if you put a sole lift in the left shoe (like we did) to help to alleviate some of the discrepancy and gave her some anterior compartment exercises (toes up walking, lift/spread/reach exercises, heel walking, simple balance on 1 leg exercises? Her world becomes a much better place to live in and she can return to the activities she loves to do with her 65 year old friends, like hiking 14′ers, skiing and mountain biking,

What we do to one joint affects all the others. You cannot make one change without expecting others. Be on the lookout and know your anatomy! This case was relatively straight forward. Many are not. Do a thorough exam and expect the unexpected.

January 07, 2016 January 07, 2016/ The Gait Guys

The Great toe’s effect on external hip rotation.

We have a simple video for you today.

When we assess our clients for gait and locomotion we do a quick screen of all the big player joints, from the toes at least up into the thoracic spine to start. Loss of mobility/range of motion means probable functional impairment.

In this video we display the effects of the Windlass Mechanism of the great toe. A windlass mechanism according to Wikipedia is:

a type of winch used especially on ships to hoist anchors and haul on mooring lines and, especially formerly, to lower buckets into and hoist them up from wells.

In this case, dorsiflexing the big toe spools the plantarfascia and flexor hallucis longus and brevis around the metatarsophalangeal joint (1st. MTPJ), thus pulling the heel towards the forefoot thus raising the arch. When the arch raises, the talus moves cephalad (upwards) and because of the supinatory movement orientation, it spins the tibial externally which in turn spins the femur externally. This is what you see in this video, note the blue dots being carried laterally with the limb external rotation.

The point here today, if you have loss of external hip rotation, it could be crying for you to evaluate the range of motion of the 1st MTP joint , it could be crying for you to evaluate the skill of toe extension, strength or endurance or all of the above. Impairment of the 1st MTP has great inroads into ineffective locomotion. You must have decent range of motion to effectively supinate, to effectively toe off, to externally rotate the limb, to effectively acquire hip extension to maximize gluteal use. Thus, one could easily say that impaired hallux/great toe extension (skill, ability, endurance, strength) can impair hip extension (and clean hip extension patterning) and result in possible terminal propulsive gait extension occurring through the lumbar spine instead of through the hip joint proper.

Think of the effects of two asymmetrical great toe extensions, comparing the great toe left to right. Asymmetry in the limbs, pelvis, hip extension and perhaps worse, the lumbar spine, is a virtual guarantee. Compare hallux extension side to side, if you can achieve symmetry through skill, endurance and strength retraining, you must do it. If you have a hallux limitus, a bunion or anything that impairs the symmetry of great toe extension side to side, you have some interesting work to do.

You have to know what you have in your client, and know what it means to their locomotion. Seeing or recognizing what you have must translate into understanding and action.

Play mental games with clinical entities. In this case, if at terminal toe off you did not have full hallux extension like in this client, and thus you did not get that last little final external rotation spin in the limb at the hip … . . what could that do to your gait ? Go tape your toe and limit terminal extension (terminal dorsiflexion) and walk around, to feel it in yourself is to get first hand experience.

Shawn Allen, one of the gait guys

January 06, 2016 January 06, 2016/ The Gait Guys

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1236085-overview

January 05, 2016 January 05, 2016/ The Gait Guys

Change the foot, change the knee (and vice versa). A video case of External Tibial Torsion.

Here is a perfect example of external tibial torsion. Are you treating and training people and messing with their orthotics, squat knee-foot posturing or making gait/running/jumping changes or recommendations? If you are doing all of this and you do not know about tibial torsions, then shame on you, go apologize to these people right now. You could be causing them mechanical grief. Go buy them ice cream (even if they are “paleo”), that fixes most unintentional human mistakes.

This is a classic presentation of external tibial torsion. This is an anatomic problem, you cannot fix this intrinsically, but you can help extrinsically. You teach these people about this issue and why the foot and the knee cannot cooperate. You teach them why their feet are spun out (increased foot progression angle) while their knee tracks straight forward sagittally. You teach them why they might heel strike far laterally and why their pronation phase might be abrupt. As in this video, you teach them why they might fashionably choose to narrow the foot progression angle (foot turned in) while at the same time having to bear weight on the lateral foot (in supination to externally spin the tibia) to keep the knee tracking sagittally. You teach them why this will be impossible to do in pumps (inversion sprain ouch) and why over time this will anger many joints and tendons. You teach them that without this accommodation they will track the knee inside the sagittal plane (as seen in the video). You teach them why they might be at greater risk of having foot prontation issue pathologies, why they might have limited internal hip rotation, why orthotics likely do not do much for them (yes, there are exceptions), why certain shoes are a challenge for them while others are magical and why over time their once beautiful arch has begun to “fall” and be less prominent as they attenuate the plantar tissues.

As you get good with this gait and biomechanics stuff, you should readily see and understand all of the issues discussed here today in a mere flash of instant brilliance so you know what to offer your client, in understanding and remedy options. As you have seen in this video, when left to their own devices, they naturally allow the knee to find the sagittal plane in a nice forward hinge. In this posture the foot is excessively progressed outward. Again, this is because of the tibial long bone torsion. This is their anatomy, this is not functional in this case. You cannot fix this, you help them manage this, first with their awareness, then with your brilliance. You may implement exercises and gait strategies to help them become aware of mechanical issues and how to protect the foot-ankle, the knee and the hip. You teach them why they might have a tendency towards anterior pelvis posturing or sway back type postures. You teach them why, in some cases, they choose knee hyperextension as a comfortable yet lazy stance postural habit. You teach them why some shoes are “happy” shoes for them, and why others are pure evil.

A foundational principle we teach here at The Gait Guys is that the knee is a simple hinge between two multiaxial joints on either side of the knee, the hip and the foot-ankle complex. The knee really can only flex and extend, and when the mechanics above and below are challenged the knee has little depth to its abilities to tolerate much of anything except simple sagittal hinging. You can see that the foot posturing and tibial torsion rule the roost here in this video. You should learn in time that managing this case above and below the knee is where the pot of gold is found. You will learn in time that taping the knee is often futile, yet a worthy experiment both for you and the client in the discovery process, but that a life time of taping is not logical. External tibial torsion, although affording the knee that sagittal hinge plane, can narrow its range of safe sagittal mechanics and it is up to you to help them learn and discover that razor’s edge safely and effectively when the torsion is large. You should also discuss with them that as they plastically tissue adapt over the years (ie. pronate more and lose more arch integrity), this razor’s edge may widen or narrow for the knee mechanics as well as the hip and foot-ankle complex.

For your reading pleasure, a classic example of how to interrogate a safe sagittal knee progression was discussed in this blog video piece we wrote recently, linked here.

Look and you shall find, but only if you know what you are looking for.

* Please now know that you should never off the cuff tell someone to turn inwards their outwardly spun foot. But if you do, have ice cream on hand, just in case.

Need more to spin your head ? Think about whether their IT band complex is going to be functioning normally. Oy, where is that ice cream !

Shawn Allen, one of the gait guys

January 04, 2016 January 04, 2016/ The Gait Guys

Falling hard; Using supination to stop the drop.

“One thing, affects all things. One change necessitates global change. The more you know, the more you will see (and understand). The more you know, see and understand, the more responsible you will and should feel to get it right and the more global your approach should become. If your head does not spin at times with all the issues that need to be juggled, you are likely not seeing all the issues you should be seeing.” -Dr. Allen (from an upcoming CME course)

This is a case that has been looked at before but today with new video. This is a client with a known anatomic short leg on the right (sock-less foot) from a diseased right hip joint.

In this video, it is clear to see the subconscious brain attempting to lengthen the right leg by right foot strike laterally (in supination) in an attempt to keep the arch and talus as high as possible. Supination should raise the arch and thus the resting height of the talus, which will functionally lengthen the leg. This is great for the early stance phase of gait and help to normalize pelvis symmetry, however, it will certainly result in (as seen in this video) a sudden late stance phase pronation event as they move over to the medial foot for toe off. Pronation will occur abruptly and excessively, which can have its own set of biomechanical compensations all the way up the chain, from metatarsal stress responses and plantar fasciitis to hip rotational pathologies. It will also result in a sudden plummet downwards back into the anatomic short leg as the functional lengthening strategy is aborted out of necessity to move forward.

This is a case where use of a full length sole lift is imperative at all times. The closer you get to normalizing the functional length, the less you need to worry about controlling pronation with a controlling orthotic (controlling rate and extent of arch drop in many cases). Do not use a heel lift only in these cases, you can see this client is already rushing quickly into forefoot loading from the issues at hand, the last thing you should be doing is plantarflexing the foot-ankle and helping them get to the forefoot even faster ! This will cause toe hammering and gripping and set the client up for further risk to fat pat displacement, abnormal metatarsal loading, challenges to the lumbricals as well as imbalances in the harmony of the long and short flexors and extensors (ie. hammer toes).

How much do you lift ? Be patient, go little by little. Give time for adaptation. Gauge the amount on improved function, not trying to match the right and the left precisely, after all the two hips are not the same to begin with. So go with cleaner function over choosing matching equal leg lengths. Give time for compensatory adaptation, it is going to take time.

Finally, do not forget that these types of clients will always need therapy and retraining of normal ankle rocker and hip extension mechanics as well as lumbopelvic stability (because they will be most likely be dumping into anterior pelvic tilt and knee flexion during the sudden forefoot loading in the late midstance phase of gait). So ramp up those lower abdominals (especially on the right) !

Oh, and do not forget that left arm swing will be all distorted since it pairs with this right limp challenge. Leave those therapeutic issues to the end, they will not change until they see more equal functional leg lengths. This is why we say never (ok, almost never) retrain arm swing until you know you have two closely symmetrical lower limbs. Otherwise you will be teaching them to compensate on an already faulty motor compensation. Remember, to get proper anti-phasic gait, or better put, to slow the tendency towards spinal protective phasic gait, you need the pelvic and shoulder “girdles” to cooperate. When you get it right, opposite arm and leg will swing together in same pendulum direction, and this will be matched and set up by an antiphasic gait.

One last thing, rushing to the right forefoot will force an early departure off that right limb during gait, which will have to be caught by the left quad to dampen the premature load on the left. They will also likely have a left frontal plane pelvis drift which will also have to be addressed at some point or concurrently. This could set up a cross over gait in some folks, so watch for that as well.

“One thing, affects all things. One change necessitates global change. The more you know, the more you will see (and understand). The more you know, see and understand, the more responsible you will and should feel to get it right and the more global your approach should become. If your head does not spin at times with all the issues that need to be juggled, you are likely not seeing all the issues you should be seeing.” -Dr. Allen (from an upcoming CME course)

Shawn Allen, one of the gait guys.

January 02, 2016

Cold war shoe lace tying

January 02, 2016/ The Gait Guys

during the Cold War, CIA agents used a method of communication based on how their shoelaces were tied.

http://www.tydknow.com/did-you-know-that-during-the-cold-war-cia-agents-used-a-method-of-communication-based-on-how/

January 02, 2016 January 02, 2016/ The Gait Guys

Salsa Dancing for Age related Functional Deficits.

Don’t dismiss it until you have tried it. For 3 years we did it here at The Gait Guys (and salsa was one of our favorites), so we know what it is all about … . the foot work, the amount of core stability needed, hip stability, lower abdominal skills, balance, proprio, vestibular accommodation etc. Dancing is no joke, and no you are not too cool to do it. Here in America we are the exception, not the rule. In most countries, after dinner, they push the tables to the sides and people dance the night away. In many countries, men dance. Looking to impress guys? Take some lessons. Looking to get your elderly clients active, set them up with your local dance studio and improve their health.

- random thoughts from Dr. Allen

Their study’s conclusions: “Salsa proved to be a safe and feasible exercise programme for older adults accompanied with a high adherence rate. Age-related deficits in measures of static and particularly dynamic postural control can be mitigated by salsa dancing in older adults. High physical activity and fitness/mobility levels of our participants could be responsible for the nonsignificant findings in gait variability and leg extensor power.” - Granacher et al.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22236951

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62CUqzdJRM

January 01, 2016

Difference between adult and infant gait compensation.

January 01, 2016/ The Gait Guys

We highly doubt the infants compensated to the point of “recovering symmetrical gait”. It just isn’t possible seeing as there was frank asymmetry in leg length. However, it is quite possible they accomodated quicker with a more reasonable compensation, that MAY have appeared to have less limp. We did not do the study, but over a beer we might guess that the investigators might agree that our verbiage is closer to accurate. None the less, cool stuff to cogitate. We are very appreciative of this study, there is something to take from this study.

“The stability of a system affects how it will handle a perturbation: The system may compensate for the perturbation or not. This study examined how 14-month-old infants-notoriously unstable walkers-and adults cope with a perturbation to walking. We attached a platform to one of participants’ shoes, forcing them to walk with one elongated leg. At first, the platform shoe caused both age groups to slow down and limp, and caused infants to misstep and fall. But after a few trials, infants altered their gait to compensate for the platform shoe whereas adults did not; infants recovered symmetrical gait whereas adults continued to limp. Apparently, adult walking was stable enough to cope with the perturbation, but infants risked falling if they did not compensate. Compensation depends on the interplay of multiple factors: The availability of a compensatory response, the cost of compensation, and the stability of the system being perturbed.”- From the Cole et all study (reference below)

- thoughts by Shawn Allen

references:

Infant Behav Dev. 2014 Aug;37(3):305-14. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.04.006. Epub 2014 May 20.Coping with asymmetry: how infants and adults walk with one elongated leg.Cole WG¹, Gill SV², Vereijken B³, Adolph KE⁴.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24857934