Leg length discrepancy. DO you have it? WHY it matters. WHAT to do.

Having a leg length discrepancy can cause a lot of issues in your body. I mean, it's pretty simple to think about. If you have one leg longer or shorter than the other, then it's going to throw your whole body off balance and you'll have issues where you have the weakest link. But is a true leg length discrepancy or is it a functional leg length discrepancy? So stay tuned. We'll go through different reasons why and what you can do about it. Take a second here to subscribe though. Hit that bell and then you'll be notified each week when we put out videos about the best way to balance your body, that your body works for you and not against you. I'm a Kim Assault. I'm the owner of soulcore Fitness and I have been in the health and fitness field for over 25 years. I started as a trainer and I'm a summer therapist and SOMA trainer and that's kind of like a physical therapist. I've been using a holistic model for the past 15 or 16 years to help my clients and myself achieve the life they want to. Being fit is not just how strong you are or how much you can sweat. It's about how well your body's balanced, how well it's functioned, how mobile it is, how pain free you are. So it's my mission is to transfer this information to as many people as possible. Leg length discrepancy can lead to pelvis issues, hip issues, knee issues, foot issues. As I mentioned before, it can lead to issues anywhere in your body is if your body is unbalanced and doesn't function properly, then where you have the weakest link starts to pay. It could be in your hip, knee or ankle, but it could also be in your viscera. It could be in your spine. It could be how well you think if your body's imbalanced, something suffers. Physiopedia referenced in a study which I'll put into description that 90% of people in the population have some sort of leg length discrepancy but small, basically meaning everybody's built different but 20% will have one over 9 millimeters. For us Americans, that's just about 3/4 of an inch. Cedar cyanide listed a couple points which I'll put in the link in the description that if you have zero to a half an inch of discrepancy, nothing needs to happen. Half an inch to an inch, you may need some sort of shoe lift inch to I think two and a Half inches. You would need some sort of surgery called. I think it's called epiphysia. I can't pronounce that. But that's where they put a screw into your growth plate to stop you from growing. And above that, you have to have some sort of surgery or which requires lengthening or shortening of the legs. True leg length discrepancy means you have an issue in the length of your bones and your legs. And you can measure that. There's a bunch of tests out there. One test they have is you lie down on your back and they measure from your asis, which is the front part of your hip, that little bony part, down to the inside part of your ankle. Not a big fan of that one, and I'll tell you why later. But you can also measure from your greater trochanter. That's a little bump here, feel right here on your hip down to the lateral condyle of your femur, which is little bump down right above your knee. You can also measure from your lateral condyle down to your lateral part of your ankle. You can also do one big measurement from here down your ankle. It's a true leg length discrepancy. You have an issue, like I said, with the lengthening of the bones, and that's where to tell. But it could be a false long length. And this is why I don't like the test from the ASIS down is because you can have a lot of issues through different joints. Your SI joint, your hip joint, your knee joint, your ankle joint. All these things can be compromised and show a different measurement, but it's false. The first area that you have issues with is your SI joint. Your SI joint is the combination of your ilium, your hip bones, your sacrum in between, and the joint that's in between. There's a lesser arm on top, a greater arm on bottom. It's a total joint, total capsule. And those two bones have like a rail that they move in. It's not big movement, but it moves. But the issue here is that the ilium within that joint could be out of position. It could be either an out flare, which means the hip goes forward and in like it's looking at you, or it could be in flare. So the hip bone is back, like it's tucking into your back pocket. Well, if that hip bone is either forward or backward in alflare, in flare, and I take a measurement from my asis down to my malleosis, that's going to throw off my measurement. But it has Nothing to do with the bones of my legs. It has everything to do with the position of my SI joint. So if it's an issue of your SI joint, after you find out, then you want to work on the SI joint. You don't want to do stuff like for the leg length, like heel lifts and stuff like that. You want to get some good treatment at your SI joint. And there's great specific stretches and exercises you can do for the SI joint and the surrounding soft tissue to balance your pelvis to correct your leg length discrepancy. Another area that could cause a false leg length discrepancy is the angle between your head of your femur, the shaft of your femur and the neck. In general, you want that to fall between the angle between 120 to 135. If it's below 120, you have what's called a coxa vera. It's too small. Above 135 Coxa Valga, it's too big. Well, that angle of that of your femur, neck and head will change how your leg is lengthened because the angle is different. So it gets either longer or shorter relative to the angle. Once you're an adult, there's not a ton you can do. There's surgery, procedures. The best thing to do is to work on that. When you're young, they can do simple surgeries or simple treatments to allow their growth to happen more evenly. Later on when you're older, if you still have that, you're going to have to constantly manage the soft tissue around that area, your hip capsule, all your muscles and fascia around there, because there's always going to be a little imbalance. But if you keep managing that area, it won't be as bad. You just have a job to do the rest of your life. Do you think you have leg length discrepancies? Do you think it's causing you issues? Do you think it's true or false? Just let me know in the comments. The third main way you could have a false or functional leg length discrepancy is via your pelvic trochanter muscles. As the name suggests, these muscles go from your pelvis to your trochanter, which is your leg, and help keep the leg in place and inside the hip capsule. But if these muscles are too tight, muscles that are too tight shorten. Showing you an example, if these muscles are too tight, like this string right here, this is my. Your left leg and your right leg. If it's too tight, then you'll see they retract well. Since these muscles are retracting and they're attached to the leg, it pulls your leg up and makes it shorter. Unfortunately, it also pulls it into the hip capsule. When it pulls it into the hip capsule, it now compacts that into the acetabulum of your hip. This is the beginning of osteoarthritis. Unfortunately, the fix for this is not complicated, it's just difficult. It's not complicated because what do you need to do? You need to stretch those muscles, right? If you stretch those muscles, it'll normalize. The leg will come back down and come out of the hip capsule. It's complicated one because it's not pleasant. Because they're tight, they're going to fight you a little bit. But also you need to do the exact opposite actions of each of those muscles. Those main muscles are the obturator internus externus, your piriformis, your gemmae and your. I think I missed one. Quadratus femoris. All those muscles have a different counteraction that you need to follow to stretch the muscle. All those muscles don't work alone. They're attached fascially to, to different aspects of the pelvis and the rest of the body. And that needs to be put in tension because you can't just stretch the muscle. You have to stretch the skin, the bag around it, because it provides information and shape for the muscle. That's where it becomes difficult. But which muscle to stretch? Well, by going through each of these counteractions of each of these muscles, your body will tell you which ones you need. AKA it's the one that's difficult. That's what you should do. Once you find the ones that's difficult, you focus on that one more. But because they all do pelvic trochanter action, very similar, you want to stretch the rest too. And then you also don't want to just do one side. So let's say my left side is. That side is tight. I don't just do the left side. I also work with the right side too. Because the body works with motor engrams in the body, it needs to stay balanced. What you want to be very careful not to do in this situation is use a heel lift. If you use a heel lift and keep that leg up and that retracted, those muscles are never going to allow to stretch out and normalize. This will also start to force issues into your pelvis. And if your pelvis is unbalanced, like I said before, your whole body is out of balance. So make sure that you're not using heel lift in this situation and just stretch those muscles. So if you think you have a leg length discrepancy, don't just assume. Go through these different tests I just talked about. Measure with a tape measure to see what the difference is. Go through and see if you have a problem with your SI joint. Check and see if you have a coxa valga via X ray or with your practitioner. Go through and see if those muscles are tight. See what's contributing to your leg length discrepancy. If you're looking for some help on trying to balance your body so you don't have pains so you can stretch those muscles out so you can be more mobile so you can live the life you want, then we want to help. In the description below we have a link for a free diagnostic consultation. We'll unpack where you are, where you want to go, give you some information how to get there, and if it involves working with us, we'll we'll make sure you're a good fit before we get you going. If you're not ready for that, then that's fine. Then also in the description we have a link for our free report on how to sustainably train your body. Again, once you click the link, you fill out information. You'll get instant access. Thanks so much for watching. Don't forget to check out this next video on how to tell if it's your low back SI or hip pain. Please don't forget to subscribe and hit that bell. And to help others find this video, please like and share it. Please remember it's not just working out, it's building a foundation for a better life.