A flexed leg is a shorter leg: When loss of knee extension really matters.

A flexed knee is a shorter leg, period.
A knee with any loss of terminal extension, is more bent knee, and thus a shorter leg, period.

Stand up, bend one knee 10 degrees, you have shortened the global top to bottom length of that leg.
So when walking, you will plunk down onto that shorter leg, and there will be a cost.

This is old hat for our long time readers, but it is a good reminder to look for loss of terminal knee extension.

I just saw a lady with a uni-knee replacement of 5 months. Failing some aspects of rehab, they are stuck. There is hip,knee and ankle pain on walking.
She had a loss of terminal knee extension, thus a short leg, true shortness.
I placed a 2mm full sole length rubber-cork lift in the shoe (*DO NOT USE JUST A HEEL LIFT, please, for the love of God and all that is beautiful on this earth stop using just heel lifts and causing plantarflexion at the ankle. Heel lifts are specific unicorns you only use when you are trying to get more plantarflexion at the ankle, or want to rush someone to the forefoot, or want a shorter posterior compartment (amongst other stupid things you probably do not want in your client mechanics)).
She put the shoe back on with the 2mm sole lift in the shoe and walked 20 steps and started to tear up. No pain.

Sometimes things are simple. We more closely restored the leg length by adding more vertical height. Yes, the problem still exists, but its global effects are somewhat muted. She stopped premature heel rise, could feel her glutes, stopped the abrupt plunk onto the leg, *stopped the sudden abrupt knee flexion loading that was crippling her.

I then took it out, "shoe'd" her up again, and she was dumbfounded, all the pain returned as did her awareness of what she was coping with.

Now, sent her away with the sole lift to accommodate for 2 weeks, and we will restart the rehab once things have time to get used to the "new norm". Now the rehab will work, we think. Time will tell

One thing is for sure, and now yesterdays post rings more clear and true, if you build strength on compensation, you earn and own that compensation.

The Gait Guys

#gait, #gaitproblems, #gaitcompensations, #strength, #heellift, #solelift, #TKA, #hippain, #shortleg

Photo courtesy of Pixabay, beautiful photo isn't it !?

Heel lift or sole lift ?

*DO NOT USE A HEEL LIFT, please, for the love of God and all that is beautiful on this earth stop using just heel lifts to correct a length length discrepancy, and thus causing plantarflexion at the ankle by raising just the heel. What about raising the forefoot, too ?! Heel lifts are specific unicorns you only use when you are trying to get more plantarflexion at the ankle, unload a barking unresponsive achilles tendonitis, or for some strange reason you wish to rush someone to the forefoot, or want a shorter posterior compartment (amongst other stupid things you probably do not want in your client mechanics)).
Besides, many people's problems arise from insufficient ankle rocker/dorsiflexion as it is , so why are you sentencing them to the depths of hell by predisposing them to pre-plantarflexed strategies ? You should love your clients ! Using a heel lift requires smarts, deep smarts, and intimate understanding of the pitfalls of pre-positioning the heel higher than the forefoot and what it may do to your clients mechanics over time. Did decades of high heel ramp, high heel-toe drop shoes or a century of high heeled women's shoes not teach us anything? (ok, we are going overboard here to make our point :)
When do we almost exclusively use a heel lift? Very temporarily in unresponsive achilles tendonopathies, and even that can be argued. But, sometimes you have to use unicorns and black magic.
Use your noggin, daily.

shawn and ivo, the gait guys

#gait, #gaitproblems, #gaitanalysis, #thegaitguys, #heellifts, #solelifts, #anklerocker, #ankleplantarflexion, #ankledorsiflexion, #heeltoedrop, #heelrise, #shortachilles

Podcast 128: Usain Bolt, Plantaris Tears, Arm Swing

Podcast links:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegaitguys/pod_128final.mp3

http://thegaitguys.libsyn.com/podcast-128-usain-bolt-plantaris-tears-arm-swing

https://www.thegaitguys.com/podcasts/


Key Tagwords:

usain bolt, plantaris tear, plantaris, sole lifts, heel lift, leg length, short leg, heel drop, shoeque, symmetry, asymmetry, sprinters, scoliosis, tendinopathy, achilles, runners, marathons, running injuries, arm swing

Our Websites:
www.thegaitguys.com
summitchiroandrehab.com   doctorallen.co     shawnallen.net


Our website is all you need to remember. Everything you want, need and wish for is right there on the site.
Interested in our stuff ? Want to buy some of our lectures or our National Shoe Fit program? Click here (thegaitguys.com or thegaitguys.tumblr.com) and you will come to our websites. In the tabs, you will find tabs for STORE, SEMINARS, BOOK etc. We also lecture every 3rd Wednesday of the month on onlineCE.com. We have an extensive catalogued library of our courses there, you can take them any time for a nominal fee (~$20).
 
Our podcast is on iTunes, Soundcloud, and just about every other podcast harbor site, just google "the gait guys podcast", you will find us.
 
Show Notes:

Superficial plantar cutaneous sensation does not trigger barefoot running adaptations.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28728130

Arm swing
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/173680.php

Usain bolt
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-stride-speed.html?referer=

Plantaris tears
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1978447/

A test question from Dr. Allen, see how you do with this photo critical thinking.When you walk on the beach you are on a slope. The leg closer to the water naturally drops down to a lower surface. Here is the game …  to keep the pelvis level …

A test question from Dr. Allen, see how you do with this photo critical thinking.

When you walk on the beach you are on a slope. The leg closer to the water naturally drops down to a lower surface. 

Here is the game …  to keep the pelvis level on the horizon, one would have to:

a. shorten the water side leg

b. lengthen the water side leg

c. pronate the water side leg

d. supinate the water side leg

e. lengthen the beach side leg

f. shorten the beach side leg

g. pronate the beach side leg

h. supinate the beach side leg

i. externally rotate the water side leg

j. internally rotate the water side leg

k. externally rotate the beach side leg

l. internally rotate the beach side leg

m. flex the water side hip

n. extend the water side hip

o. flex the beach side hip

p. extend the beach side hip

******Ok, Stop scrolling right now !!!!!  

List all the letters that apply first.

You should have many letters.  *** And here is the kicker for bonus points, the letters can be unscrambled to spell the name of one of the most popular of the Beatles. Name that Beatle.

.

.

.

don’t look, figure it out before you scroll down further. It is important you try to work through the question and its foundational principles.

.

.

.

.

.

.


Answer: B, D, F , G, I ,L , N, O

* now, more importantly, make sure you think of these issues in all your clients with leg length discrepancies, both anatomic and function and when the pelvis is not level. This is the most important take away from today’s test question. If you got the answers correct, you have the knowledge to implement. If you did not get the answer correct, you need to hammer down the HOW and WHY of the answer before you start playing with people’s bodies putting in heel lifts (boooo), sole lifts, orthotics, postings etc. If you do not have the foundation to play by the rules, you should not be playing.

ok, we were messing with ya on the Beatles thing. Sorry.

Dr. Shawn Allen

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.