Squatting with a shim

[Mr.City]

Hey fellas,

It has come to my attention that one leg is slight shorter than the other. This solves a few problems with my squat descent, and now I'm looking into a shim for my shoes. I was thinking of going the cheap bastard route and putting a small piece of padding/plastic under my short leg. I'm not incredible tied to the idea of paying a lot of money to a cobbler since I'll have to pay again when the shoes go.

Summary: Those with uneven legs, how do you deal with it and what do you use to shim?

[spiderman]

What is the difference in the lengths of your legs?

[SivariKing]

Same problen here. Have had surgery on my right leg because of it. Squatting with uneven legs sucks. Good luck!

[Mr.City]

All of this is postulation and guesswork, but:

Is it specifically the fib/tib that is shorter, or is it the femur, or pelvic rotation/tilt, or a combination? Only if everything or a combination of things contribute to the discrepancy, artificially lengthening the fib/tib by way of an insert might not improve things, because you've effectively elevated the knee joint but the joint will still be closer to the hip than the long leg, or you'd still have some odd pelvic twisting and thus odd muscle lengths or something... i guess what i'm saying is it might not be the complete solution (although i doubt there's an easy way to shim the femur so probably the most practical?)

Not sure. This is something I need to check out. I have a friend who is a chiro and lifts, so I was thinking of asking her to check it out.

[Mac Ward]

Not sure. This is something I need to check out. I have a friend who is a chiro and lifts, so I was thinking of asking her to check it out.

FWIW everytime I go to the chiro, there is a discrepency in leg length. After the adjustement, VOILA! no discrepency. According to my chiro (fomer powerlifter), we all have a slight imbalance, chiro's are excellent at restoring this. Through repetitive visits, the muscles will "re-learn" the correct position that allows similiar leg length.

[AdamW]

FWIW everytime I go to the chiro, there is a discrepency in leg length. After the adjustement, VOILA! no discrepency.

According to my mechanic there's always something wrong with my car that I need to pay him to fix too...

[Mac Ward]

According to my mechanic there's always something wrong with my car that I need to pay him to fix too...

I'm in the military...he doesn't get paid any more or less whether I come or not. He has showed me the leg length discrepancy on each visit. Fairly common actually.

[AdamW]

I'm in the military...he doesn't get paid any more or less whether I come or not. He has showed me the leg length discrepancy on each visit. Fairly common actually.

Ah well you're lucky to have an honest one! ;-) My chiropractor was a money hungry bastard.

[RobCor]

I'm in the military...he doesn't get paid any more or less whether I come or not. He has showed me the leg length discrepancy on each visit.

Fair enough, but he is able to conjure justification for being employed.

All sorts of "professionals" can show you quirky things about your own body. Ever heard of those balance bracelets people sell in malls? The salesmen try to knock you over with and without the bracelet on, but they manipulate your bodily very differently, and very purposefully, in each "demonstration."

I'm not of the opinion that all chiropractors are useless, but rather that they are overused.

I had a chiro for a year when I was young. All sorts of back pain. After a year he mentioned that I may have a muscle imbalance in my lower back. I started training to strengthen my back and, voila, no more pain.

[skipbeat]

my left leg is a little longer, i just have a slightly asymmetrical stance because of it, doesn't seem too big of a deal!