Bike Fit Question - Leg Length Discrepancy

[KnottedYet]

Specialized makes some very nice non-compressible forefoot lifts/shims that go inside the shoe. Unless you already have orthotics that you want made into full-foot, I'd be looking at the Specialized goodies.

(If you already have orthotics, your Orthotist will know the lift at your heel and should have no problem just *giving* you a slab of cork the same thickness for your forefoot in the bike shoe.)

[melissam]

Thanks again, Knot!

I have a pair of orthotics on order from the Orthotic Group. Their rep was in the office and we did a scan of my feet/gait while walking -- fascinating stuff! Turns out that my bad leg has a pretty normal pattern but my good leg does some pretty funky gymnastics to compensate for the bad leg.

Anyway, the orthotics should be here by the end of the month, and I'll give 'em a go. If that doesn't help enough, I can always compensate by tilting my saddle to the side with that seatpost. (Just kidding.)

-- Melissa

[Triskeliongirl]

A 1" LLD is huge, and unlikely to be fixable by cleat shimming or orthotics. I only got resolution with a custom crank set with a dropped pedal (mine is 3 cm) from Tom Slocum at High Sierra Cycles. I highly recommend his approach. All other approaches gave me terrible hip and back pain, that tooks months for a PT to fix.

[KnottedYet]

Oh, yeah! I'd much rather see an effective crank length/dropped pedal adjustment than a side-tilting saddle.

A lot of times what we start with is correcting 1/2 the LLD. So for a 1 inch LLD we put in a 1/2 inch lift or lift-and-shim combo (cuz your bod has been compensating for that 1 inch your whole life and we don't want to push it all the way to the other side and cause a new problem!)

If your orthotics and cleat shims don't make the world a better place, I'd suggest seeing either Michael Sylvester, Chris Robinson, or someone they recommend. Someone like me, with more PT training than bike-stuff training, might not know about the nifty stuff you can do at the crank/pedal.

(interesting aside: did you know that Bill Nye the Science Guy designed a bike pedal lift for LLD?)

Edit: has anyone talked to you about putting lifts in the outsole of your shoes, as opposed to inside the shoe? This kind of trick works peachy-keen with regular shoes, is a lot cheaper, and you never have that "OMG, my orthotics are in my other shoes!" moment. You usually want to have experimented with lift sizes before you go make structural changes to the shoes.

[Mr. SR500]

John Howard briefly touches on LLD at the 6 minute mark of this You Tube video. Good Stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWOn3...eature=related

[melissam]

Thanks for all the great input!

Trisk,
If the whole shimming/orthotic thing doesn't work, I'll consider the custom crankset. My hip & back were reasonably happy with the shimmed Look cleat, so I may be able to get away with having half of my LLD corrected. I hope.

Knot,
I have corrected the outsoles of some of my shoes. I probably own one of the few pairs of Platform Tevas -- think '70's. OK, only the left one is a platform Teva, the right one is standard. I also have a platform Birkenstock. Yep, I'm just way too cool.

Mr. SR500,
The John Howard bike fit videos were interesting -- thanks for pointing me to the spot where he talked about LLDs. I may be wrong, but it seems that his point was that the LLD may be due to anatomical issues or muscular issues. He went on to say that 9 times out of 10, the LLD vanished after he made adjustments to patients on the table. He also said that correcting with shims exacerbated the problem as it extended it rather than levelling it.

Seeing the video has raised some additional questions:
1. What if the LLD is due to an anatomic issue that can't be corrected with adjustment? In my case, I had a spiral fracture of my left femur; each fracture point lost about 1/16" during healing, and if you do the math, well, my left leg is about an inch shorter than my right. Can this be corrected with adjustments? Or is this the type of problem that is best corrected with shims?

2. If you make soft tissue adjustments to correct LLD issues, is it a one-time deal, or does the area have to be adjusted periodically? Who's qualified to make these types of adjustments? PT? Chiropractor?

I'm not sure if I'm wording this well -- I'm not really expecting anyone to give me the answers, I'm just expressing my curiosity and am interested in hearing others' opinions or thoughts.

Thanks again to all who've weighed in on this.

-- Melissa

[KnottedYet]

If your LLD is structural (like from a fracture) soft tissue adjustments ain't gonna cut it. You're doing the right thing by shimming/lifting your shoes.