Leg length discrepency (Important read for back pain)

[ju87 0]

Excellent and informative thread. Thanks to bringing it to our attention!

I have the same problem with pronation due to collapsing arches, leading my foot to turn outwards. I did the pelvic twist test today and found that the leg with the worst pronation is the shorter leg. I was about to buy new skates and have the holders moved toward the inside to compensate (I already use custom orthotics), but now, I'm instead considering lifts on the holder to compensate.

Does anyone know if the lifts themselves will do the trick, or whether I should also move the holder further to the inside?

[iceangel 0]

oops! never own graf skates.

[djinferno 2]

Excellent and informative thread. Thanks to bringing it to our attention!

I have the same problem with pronation due to collapsing arches, leading my foot to turn outwards. I did the pelvic twist test today and found that the leg with the worst pronation is the shorter leg. I was about to buy new skates and have the holders moved toward the inside to compensate (I already use custom orthotics), but now, I'm instead considering lifts on the holder to compensate.

Does anyone know if the lifts themselves will do the trick, or whether I should also move the holder further to the inside?

I'd try lifts on the shorter leg first since orthotics seem to work for you because moving the holder to the outside will not compensate for the leg length...

If that is not enough, then go with moving holders...

[fatwabbit 93]

Got them in the mail yesterday, and was thinking that it was a waste of money to buy these. Decided to try them out in tonight's game, even though I didnt have any time to try them out durign practice or at home.

Was sort of in a daze from all the work today, but once I got my skates on, it felt pretty good. Got my gear on, and did a few laps. Immediately, I felt a lot more comfortable on my skates. Turns were quicker, and felt a lot more stable. Won like 4 out of 6 faceoffs due to feeling more stable. Also, sorta got beat up standing in front of the goalie by the d-man, but even then everything seemed much better.

Got back after the game, and what do you know... no back pain at all. No stiffness, no soreness. Seems like a lot of good stuff.

[Hockeydog 8]

Great thread, I too have this issue.

When I was first living on my own in my younger days I had an old mattress that I had to put one of those foam pads on. Because of that pad I never noticed that I was sleeping in a dip. I sleep on my right side and have notice a shorter right leg. I stuck a oder eater insole under both my right sneaker and right skate just to experiment. I notced when I squat in front of a mirror that I don't use my left leg as much without the extra insole and look and feel more balanced with it. Same with skating, I feel like my balance is better and my bad side ( counter-clockwise turns and stops) got better right off the bat. Time for me to have this issue checked out. Thanks for string this thread!!

[djinferno 2]

I have some more usefull info

People that have there feet doing like the image...

Check to see if you have a condition called Morton's toe

http://www.mortonsfoot.com/rothbartsfoot.html

This is a deeper explination I found about the issue and some self remedies...

http://www.triggerpointbook.com/mortons.htm

I mention this because I went back to see my doctor yesterday and I was explainning how I feel like I had a lump on the outside part of the ball of my foot, the foot that is doing that (see Picture), so he asked me if i'm use to having my feet feeling crammed in skates... I was like DUH! everytime I skate, I basicly have to be crammed to skate but now I feel like I have a lump all the time, It's not always there tho, I would say 80% of the time so I know it's not my bones... So he thinks that since i don't look like i have Morton's toe, I might have a condition that is called Morton's Neuroma and it might be causing problems like my foot tilting and that also could explain why orthotics are not working...

Morton's Neuroma

http://www.footphysicians.com/footankleinf...ons-neuroma.htm

So the doc said so keep using the 1/8' lift but maybe put it permanent between the skate and the boot and considar getting skates with wider toebox midfoot area and see how my foot reacts/progresses...

Again I'm just posting to help others that might be going tru same type things...

[BGM 0]

Like I said before I think orthotics will help if you have a flat foot but if it's a leg-length difference heel lifts will only band-aid the problem as your are not really correcting the bio-mechanics. If it's a leg length find a good physical therapist and do what he tells you on doing excercises to correct it.

[Fire0nIce228 1]

Dumb question. Looking at that picture, then looking at my foot got me thinking. The inside half of the heel of my shoes always wear down faster. Do I have foot pronation? I notice when I walk in sandles my foot is always on the inside edge of the sandle..

But I think I'm a fairly good skater, and I never really have back pain or anything like that. Cause I'm young, I might have problems later on if life?

[djinferno 2]

Dumb question. Looking at that picture, then looking at my foot got me thinking. The inside half of the heel of my shoes always wear down faster. Do I have foot pronation? I notice when I walk in sandles my foot is always on the inside edge of the sandle..

But I think I'm a fairly good skater, and I never really have back pain or anything like that. Cause I'm young, I might have problems later on if life?

All i can suggest is to see a pr and not only one...

[fatwabbit 93]

second time on my skates with the added lift in the right boot. Seems to be working fine the next day... no back pains, no sore knees...

[Sprungster 5]

People pull their lower back bad and can't or don't get to a chiropractor to fix it and get used to the pain and inconvenience and after a few years you have a short leg, a tilted pelvis and Scoliosis (curvature of the spine). Sometimes when you're a kid, and have no idea what's going on. Maybe carry your books on the same hip all the way through school like my sister.

Reg doctors generally offer you a pill for the pain, but it doesn't fix anything.

After a bad couple of years of strains and accidents I looked like a 90 year old guy crabwalking down the street. Straight and level, now. Chiropractors are the best!!!!

I heard that in Minnesota all the cows have short legs on one side. Probably why none of them can play hockey. :)

[fatwabbit 93]

haha great one keith.

I've got two of the three you've mentioned. Tilted pelvis, and scoliosis. I've tried standing up straight, but sometimes it hurys like hell. But like I said, the footbed I've used has helped me heaps, and I think it was $20 well spent ($9.99 for the footbed, $10 for shipping)....

[BGM 0]

Dumb question. Looking at that picture, then looking at my foot got me thinking. The inside half of the heel of my shoes always wear down faster. Do I have foot pronation? I notice when I walk in sandles my foot is always on the inside edge of the sandle..

But I think I'm a fairly good skater, and I never really have back pain or anything like that. Cause I'm young, I might have problems later on if life?

All i can suggest is to see a pr and not only one...

Most people have some degree of pronation--I wouldn't worry about it if you don't have any pain. You can get it checked out but my guess is you are just normal.

[Sprungster 5]

haha great one keith.

I've got two of the three you've mentioned. Tilted pelvis, and scoliosis. I've tried standing up straight, but sometimes it hurys like hell. But like I said, the footbed I've used has helped me heaps, and I think it was $20 well spent ($9.99 for the footbed, $10 for shipping)....

Here's a good trick my chiropractor gave me. Lay on the floor on your side that has the high hip bone and put a 3/4-1" thick book under your hipbone. Gravity will help pull it level after a couple of weeks of doing this every night when you come home for 20 minutes. As soon as you put the book under there you can feel it wanting to move. BIG DIFFERENCE :) :) :)

My worst was folding my pelvis forward in a bike accident and I couldn't lay on my stomach for almost four years.

[LeMagnifique66 0]

I hate to bump such an old thread, but this information is still very relevant.

Skipping to the chase, I am pretty much in the same boat here...

Left leg is 1/2" shorter than my right.

Tilted pelvis.

Scholiosis.

Unfotunately for me, this is all coming on as a result of degenerative bone/joint disease (Psoriatic Arthritis). My weight-bearing joints on the left side are simply wearing faster than on the right. So, it's not a matter of simply being re-aligned by a chiroprator. The bone is just gone. So, I do the shoe lift thing all the time. Every minute of the day. Even when I am home, my left slipper has a 1/2" lift inside. Since getting back into skating last year, I have just bought deep volume skates to accomodate a 1/2" internal lift. Baking and pulling the laces extra snug on the right skate to take that volume away has done a fair job for me thus far. Obviously, shimming between the boot and holder is the BEST answer when needing this amount of lift though. (Actually, I'm even considering just shimming the left skate with 1/4" stock and then having 1/4" of steel removed from the right skate runner as a 1/2" shim seems extreme.) So, my question is this...

What is the best material to use for skate shim stock between the boot and holder and where is the best place to purchase it? (As most all of the links in this thread are now dead.) I've searched around online and it seems there is not really a strong recommendation. (This thread seems to suggest Lexan? What about HDPE?) Unfortunately, my LHS doesn't do any such boot/holder modification or I would have already just had them deal with it for me.

Thanks for any and all help!

[LeMagnifique66 0]

Thank you, my new friend.

You know, I've already been racking my brain with all of this stuff about whether I should go for a full 1/2" thickness shim material or if I should layer 1/4", or 1/8", or 1/16" thickness material etc. The biggest problem right now with the 1/2" thick internal lift I've been using, aside from boot volume, is that it is only a heel lift. (There's no way I'd fit into the skate with a full length 1/2" thick internal lift.) This obviously puts me extremely up onto my toes on the left and almost flat-footed by comparison on the right. (And I can't really do anything significant to even this out as messing with the profile on the right skate blade, for example, will also alter the perceived height discrepency between skates that I'm after.) As such, I've also been considering making the shim only 1/4" or 3/8" thick and then keeping a 1/4" or 1/8" thick internal lift. The hope would be that I might then be able to use a full length internal lift instead of just a heel lift to get me back in better balance.

It's actually pretty amazing to me that I can even skate at all when I consider what I've been putting up with. At this point, just about anything external has to be better than where I'm at now. Personally, I kind of like the idea of HDPE. But, I can go right to Lowe's or Home Depot and grab a sheet of 1/16" thick Lexan big enough to make the shims for under $30. So, that may be my first attempt.