I got a trainer and was riding last night for the first time on it and noticed that my right leg was doing more work than the left. I had to really concentrate to get my left leg to do more. It never felt right and I wound up bouncing on the saddle trying to get the left leg to do more. Never noticed my right leg when I ride on the road, but not a lot to do when on the trainer except notice every little thing. My right foot is slightly bigger so I was wondering if it was possible that my left leg was shorter. As as a side note my left hip pops when I walk. My hip would sometimes bother me but since I have been exercising it has not bothered me. The pop is not painful but makes me wonder if it might have to do with one leg being longer than the other. I don’t notice the pop when I walk but can feel it if I put my hand on my hip. Anyone have any thoughts?
Being in the field of fitness and health I honestly have never heard anyone say they have been checked and did NOT have one leg longer than another. I feel it’s just the way God made us. I am sure one arm is longer, KNOW one breast is larger, etc.
It may just be that one leg is stronger than the other. VERY common. Just like one hand is dominant, one leg is as well. Normally it will be the opposite leg of what hand is dominant but you always get someone who is “goofy foot”.
Try doing your strength exercises with one leg such as one-legged squats, step ups, etc. You may see a difference. There are a couple articles in training here on slowtwitch re. strength which may help you. If you start having pain then get it checked by a PT or Sports Med or Ortho.
Get on your bike and look down at your feet. Does one foot point down more than the other? (Get a friend to look if you aren’t sure.) That was how I found out that one leg was a fair bit longer than the other.
Other clues I missed were a hip and knee that popped on one side, a tendency to trip over the same foot, a distinctively mismatched sound pattern to my running-- I could hear that I was hitting harder with one side than the other, a tendency to get weird injuries all the time, and a complete lack of success in resolving any of these problems with strength drills, one-legged or otherwise. Doing one-legged strength training is great-- I think everyone should do it. But it won’t solve your real problem if one leg is significantly longer than the other.
I ended up going to a physical therapist who noticed that my Q-angles (hip-to-knee) didn’t match. One was off by several degrees. Once he pointed it out to me I was stunned I hadn’t noticed before because it could be plainly seen in a mirror. He fixed me up and in two months my angles matched and my legs were the same length (or as close to it as one can realistically expect in a human).
So do get the leg length issue checked out. If you have a problem, it may be fixable like mine was, or you may need to put a lift in one shoe. Once you’re sure you’re okay in that department, proceed with single-leg drills. You’ll be so glad you went to the trouble because your speed will increase like magic once you’re getting full power from both legs!
It may just be that one leg is stronger than the other. VERY common. Just like one hand is dominant, one leg is as well. Normally it will be the opposite leg of what hand is dominant but you always get someone who is “goofy foot”.
Maylene, I find it interesting that you have found the dominant foot to be the OPPOSITE of the dominant hand. In teaching tae kwon do, I have found the opposite to be true, it a person is right handed they tend to be right footed. I take pains to try and identify left footed students early on. This is important when teaching new techniques, especially to children. I can then teach to the dominant side and the student doesn’t get discouraged by feeling that they are awkward when everyone else seems to get it.
Is it physical strength or dexterity you are looking at? Supposedly ones off hand is stronger but doesn’t seem so because of the better dexterity on the dominant side.
Also, I have found that it is possible to train, at least dexterity wise, out of a dominant side. I am right handed and right footed. However, because of some advanced scoliosis, my right side is very tight. So I tend to be right footed for things easily accomplished by that foot and left footed for more difficult techniques requiring more flexibility. I wish my right leg was half as good as my left. I could do some things that I can only teach to others at this point.
I am using dominant in terms of strength. The poster was concerned about leg length do to lack of strength on one side. And you are correct. Dexterity-wise you tend to be same foot/hand.
When an athlete is right handed they tend to use their opposite leg as their “plant” which tends to be stronger through the hip because of the stabilization needed in most athletic movements. For instance, when a right-handed ball player throws, which foot is planted? His left. There is a diagonal force path created by the hip/leg and leads to the opposite arm.
Right handed runners tend to put their left foot ahead on the start line.
In Tae Kwon Do you may be thinking that the dominant foot is the same as the dominant hand because you are thinking in terms of kicking. However, don’t you feel the other leg is stronger since it has to stabilize the body in order to accomplish that kick? I think my right leg (I kicked with my right leg when I did Muay Thai) is more “coordinated” but I feel my left is stronger.
You are correct Maylene, I tend to think of the dominant one as the one doing the kick, you percieve it as the base. Without the stabilization of the “dominant leg” that kick isn’t going anywhere.
Interesting stuff. I am right handed and it feels like my right leg is stronger. If I kick a soccer ball I’ll do it with my right foot, but if I line up for a race my left foot will be forward. I also have less body fat on the right side of my abdomen (weird how you pick up on stuff when you start looking). I am left eye dominant though and I only walk in circles after a six pack of beer
anothe on-bike indication is how your knee tracks over your pedal as you move through the pedal stroke. have someone(preferrably a qualified fitter) look at you from dead front and watch how your knees track. odds are if you have a “short” leg, that knee will be doing some kind of S curve/figure8 motion as it comes over the top, whereas the longer leg will be tracking straight over your pedal. If the discrepancy is minor, one possible solution is to move the cleat on the “short” leg forward on the sole of the shoe, artificially shortening the reach on that side. I’ve found that alot of length issues really stem from hip and pelvic alignment issues, and if this is the case a good PT is your best bet.
Maybe it’s just a coordination thing. I have only been riding a couple of months so maybe my right leg is just more coordinated and smoother than the left and it just feels like my right leg is doing more because of a lack of coordination in the left leg. FWIW my right foot does tend to slap the ground more than the left when I run.
You have to differentiate between physiological and anatomical short legs. Physiological short legs is usually due to muscle imbalance, pelvic torsion, etc. Anatomical short leg is one leg has a shorter bone than another. Could be born this way or caused by a fracture that shortened when it healed. This is common in spiral tibia fractures for example.
Several ways to guess/tell
Examine iliac crest heights which could be pelvic torsion but could also be an anatomical anomalie so this isn’t accurate.
lay on stomach on a chiropractic or massage table with face not turned to either side. Practitioner examines which side appears longer/shorter. Unfortunately, not usually very accurate either.
Use tape measure and measure from trochanter of hip to lateral malleolus of the ankle. Often hard to find these, especially on muscular or obese people so this method isn’t fool proof either.
X-rays. The only truly accurate way to measure, but who needs the radiation dose.
If 1, 2 & 3 all test the same then there might be a reasonable chance that it is so.
Well, in cows and horses, I look for those walking on the side of a hill. The animals that are going clockwise have shorter right legs, the animals going counterclockwise have shorter left legs
I’m right hand dominant, but jump off my left…think lay-up in basketball. I think it’s the most common set-up, but, I haven’t ever studied it.
Actually, this is exactly true for me. I was a pitcher as a youngster then converted to tennis. Both emphasized my right arm and left leg. As a consequence I am still much stronger in my left leg than my right. On long rides my right leg always “dies” first. And I haven’t been playing ball or tennis for over 30 years.
This works for discrepancy in bone lengths, but you can have identical bone lengths and still have a functional leg length discrepancy (I do). Basically, all it takes is having your pelvis rotated a little bit to one side (quite common).
And I haven’t been playing ball or tennis for over 30 years.