Have you ever been told that your running/cycling/backpain etc is a result of leg length differences? Interesting. Have you ever met ANYONE with exactly the same length of legs? No? Quite.
We are NOT symmetrical. In fact, if you can find me a person who is exactly symmetrical I’d love to meet them. The rest of us have to make do – and there are many many people out there with various leg length differences etc. who are running/cycling etc quite painlessly. No symptoms. Nothing.
Does this mean that leg length is totally unhelpful in diagnosing problems? Not quite. I have met a couple of people with leg length issues that have really needed attention – we’re talking 2 inches+ of leg length difference here. Full on pathology. THAT needs some attention.
Anything close to each other? I’m less inclined to think it is a leg length issue that causes high degrees of pain in a lot of cases. (I’m not saying all- I’m merely saying that leg length discrepancy is blamed for a lot of things that it isn’t to blame for).
A demonstration of perfect posture by a team of highly trained volunteers
– and leading on from that – Posture…
The amount of people that tell me that they have bad posture… it’s a lot. I for one am unsure about bad posture per se. Yes, if you sit in one particular position for a long period of time, that is probably going to cause some issues – but this is true whether you are in a slumped netflix-watching beanbag pose, or a ram-rod straight “I’m being assessed for my posture” pose. I’d argue that neither would be entirely comfortable, or “good” for you if adopted for long periods of time.
If you watch a cat or a dog sleeping, they don’t spend the entire time in the same position, they move. A lot. From my experience, that is probably the most important part of it. Adopt comfortable positions and postures, but move around a lot. Give muscles some rest. Allow yourself the luxury of a stretch, a wiggle, a reposition, whatever. Just don’t stay in the same position for hours on end. Even if you’ve had a desk assessment – that’s not going to be a great place to be.