My left leg is slightly longer than my right, and I think this gives me knee pain. Should I add an insole to my right shoes, or would this make any potential hip alignment issues that might be causing the longer left leg to get worse?
This depends entirely on the actual leg length discrepancy. Some LLD’s are structural in nature and it is the way your bones have grown – it is however normal to have them and up to 5 mm is the actual average and you can go in excess of that with no correlation to real problems.
Other leg length discrepancy’s are “functional“ in nature. It could be that the hip imbalance is actually what’s causing the leg length discrepancy rather than the other way around. There’s no way for me to necessarily tell without physically examining you however I can give you some tips - *not medical advice* - that have helped me and some others when dealing with the same issue.
• Check if you have scoliosis of some sort. And upper body scoliosis can pull one of the hips higher or lower or rotate (rotation is very common and undiagnosed) The hips causing a functional leg length discrepancy. You can find examinations and tests as well as functional treatments for free on YouTube.
• leg length discrepancy is even when they exist or not that strongly correlated with pain unless they are egregious. Based on the biopsychosocial model of pain small asymmetry is like this are often given as these convoluted explanations for complex fitness and health problems for people to make money off of you for years. It is a genuine phenomenon where people believe something is causing them a problem and you manifest that In pain whereas if you did not mentally approach yourself in that way your health would improve.in pain whereas if you did not mentally approach yourself in that way your health would improve. back pain is by far and away the strongest indicator of this phenomenon. So I would behoove you to double check your legs and see just how much of a leg length discrepancy you truly have from the ankle bone to the patella to the iliac crest of your hip. If this is not more than .75 of an inch it likely is not a major issue. And even then it is workable.
• if you do have a large leg length discrepancy that is structural you could try an insole - consult your doctor and see if they can have one made for you special. I do not believe it would make anything seriously worse however please follow the advice I provide for you next below first.
That all being said I think it would be wise to just address the knee pain itself and having strong and flexible hips in the right range of motion which I have a feeling will take care of any knee problem first.
Sensibly and carefully start with something like this and we can reconnect next week or in a few days or whenever you have some feedback to give me and see how it goes:
Perform some sort of deep knee bend exercise for 8 to 25 reps regressed to a weight that you can handle virtually pain-free. Your goal is to progress this exercise in strength increasing reps and weight without serious pain.
*This means if it is hurting your knee you need to regress the weight or intensity of the exercise even if your “muscle” could do more*
What we are training here is the knee *joint* and you can consider pain as a form of “failure“ when approaching this. Your exercise options from easiest to strongest depending on your current pain free ability would probably be this:
• backwards walking – you can add resistance to this by dragging something or walking uphill. (I recommend you do this daily no matter what) *it works*
• A full range of motion split squat – train both legs even though only one is bothering you. If you don’t have the flexibility/strength/pain free capacity to do one on the ground, you can prop your leg up on an elevated surface like a chair, stair, etc. to lower the weight/mobility needed. Overtime do you want to increase the weight that you’re using on this exercise just like anything else.
• deep knee bends with an upright torso and your heels off the floor while holding onto some thing for balance.
• Full range of motion split squats on the ground will likely be the hardest one to do but ideally you want to work up to them if you can’t already - if you can in that case start with these obviously.
This is what I would start with and if you can easily do all of these things then message me back and we will progress further but I think this is a simple enough start that has a high chance of improving the knee strength and “balance” of the body. I will link some YouTube exercise tutorials below.
Lastly I also want to add: it would probably be very useful and good for you to add some form of targeted hip/Gluth work into the routine for moderate reps.
Doing some form of hip thrusts for 12 to 15 reps for two or three sets once or twice a week will also do wonders for straightening out your hips and keeping your low back and knees healthy.
If you cannot do a hip thrust then a back extension or Romanian deadlift are other decent options. (However I think hip thrusts and Gluth Bridges would be better in this case but BE SENSIBLE)
*and as always this is not medical advice this is just an opinion from me check with your doctor about any serious issues before you partake in anything*
My left leg is slightly longer than my right, and I think this gives me knee pain. Should I add an insole to my right shoes, or would this make any potential hip alignment issues that might be causing the longer left leg to get worse?
This depends entirely on the actual leg length discrepancy. Some LLD’s are structural in nature and it is the way your bones have grown – it is however normal to have them and up to 5 mm is the actual average and you can go in excess of that with no correlation to real problems.
Other leg length discrepancy’s are “functional“ in nature. It could be that the hip imbalance is actually what’s causing the leg length discrepancy rather than the other way around. There’s no way for me to necessarily tell without physically examining you however I can give you some tips - *not medical advice* - that have helped me and some others when dealing with the same issue.
• Check if you have scoliosis of some sort. And upper body scoliosis can pull one of the hips higher or lower or rotate (rotation is very common and undiagnosed) The hips causing a functional leg length discrepancy. You can find examinations and tests as well as functional treatments for free on YouTube.
• leg length discrepancy is even when they exist or not that strongly correlated with pain unless they are egregious. Based on the biopsychosocial model of pain small asymmetry is like this are often given as these convoluted explanations for complex fitness and health problems for people to make money off of you for years. It is a genuine phenomenon where people believe something is causing them a problem and you manifest that In pain whereas if you did not mentally approach yourself in that way your health would improve.in pain whereas if you did not mentally approach yourself in that way your health would improve. back pain is by far and away the strongest indicator of this phenomenon. So I would behoove you to double check your legs and see just how much of a leg length discrepancy you truly have from the ankle bone to the patella to the iliac crest of your hip. If this is not more than .75 of an inch it likely is not a major issue. And even then it is workable.
• if you do have a large leg length discrepancy that is structural you could try an insole - consult your doctor and see if they can have one made for you special. I do not believe it would make anything seriously worse however please follow the advice I provide for you next below first.
That all being said I think it would be wise to just address the knee pain itself and having strong and flexible hips in the right range of motion which I have a feeling will take care of any knee problem first.
Sensibly and carefully start with something like this and we can reconnect next week or in a few days or whenever you have some feedback to give me and see how it goes:
Perform some sort of deep knee bend exercise for 8 to 25 reps regressed to a weight that you can handle virtually pain-free. Your goal is to progress this exercise in strength increasing reps and weight without serious pain.
*This means if it is hurting your knee you need to regress the weight or intensity of the exercise even if your “muscle” could do more*
What we are training here is the knee *joint* and you can consider pain as a form of “failure“ when approaching this. Your exercise options from easiest to strongest depending on your current pain free ability would probably be this:
• backwards walking – you can add resistance to this by dragging something or walking uphill. (I recommend you do this daily no matter what) *it works*
• A full range of motion split squat – train both legs even though only one is bothering you. If you don’t have the flexibility/strength/pain free capacity to do one on the ground, you can prop your leg up on an elevated surface like a chair, stair, etc. to lower the weight/mobility needed. Overtime do you want to increase the weight that you’re using on this exercise just like anything else.
• deep knee bends with an upright torso and your heels off the floor while holding onto some thing for balance.
• Full range of motion split squats on the ground will likely be the hardest one to do but ideally you want to work up to them if you can’t already - if you can in that case start with these obviously.
This is what I would start with and if you can easily do all of these things then message me back and we will progress further but I think this is a simple enough start that has a high chance of improving the knee strength and “balance” of the body. I will link some YouTube exercise tutorials below.
Lastly I also want to add: it would probably be very useful and good for you to add some form of targeted hip/Gluth work into the routine for moderate reps.
Doing some form of hip thrusts for 12 to 15 reps for two or three sets once or twice a week will also do wonders for straightening out your hips and keeping your low back and knees healthy.
If you cannot do a hip thrust then a back extension or Romanian deadlift are other decent options. (However I think hip thrusts and Gluth Bridges would be better in this case but BE SENSIBLE)
*and as always this is not medical advice this is just an opinion from me check with your doctor about any serious issues before you partake in anything*
Let me know if you have any more questions, if you’re having any trouble, and how you’re feeling.
All the best
Full Range of motion Split squat https://youtu.be/4qPJUSczLcM
Deep knee bends https://youtu.be/aF9dWYfloOQ
Hip thrust https://youtu.be/MzZMBIcN4DA