As I stated in a seperate blog, the development process causes each half of the body to develop independently, including foot size and leg length. As a runner, it is imperative that you understand these differences and adjust your equipment and training to accomodate the differences.
1. Based on which foot is larger, you should fit your shoes to minimize injuries from loss of toenails, to ingrown toenails, to blisters and even stress fractures.
2. Leg length difference can be a bigger issue:
-If the leg length difference is only minor, you will often not notice any difference and can continue to run without difficulty. No training adjustments will be required.
- For a significant difference, the following training modifications should be considered:
A heel lift or orthotic (with heel lift integrated) should be considered to allow modification of length to make the legs function closer to the same. This minor modification of equipment will preclude major changes in training.
If you typically run on a treadmill, the heel lift/orthotic are imperative, because there is no training adjustment that can be done to fix the additional stress on the bones, ligaments and tendons or aggressive pronation of the shorter leg that will occur irrespective of the shoe utilized.
If you typically run on a road, modify your running such that the longer leg is on the downside of the road. For example if your left leg is longer, running against traffic is good. The opposite is the case for a longer right leg. This is because most roads are canted to allow runoff during rain storms to the sides of the road.
So before you get more expensive shoes, run long distances or get injured from poor functioning of your feet from a simple leg length difference, make the necessary adjustments to improve your running gait pattern. Your body will thank you.
Dr Brandt R Gibson
Mountain West Foot & Ankle Institute
36 North 1100 East, Suite B
American Fork, UT 84003
801-756-0765
www.UtahFootDoc.com
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Great article...I'm always telling my runnes to continuously switch sides of the road so they won't give themselves a function leg length discrepency!
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