Little changes make a big difference

I have been doing the sports physical therapist exercises for a week now and I can feel the difference. I also had a gait test and after some corrections to my running form, my 11 mile run yesterday actually felt great!

The rotated pelvis problem that I have isn't noticable in a mirror, but I could definitely see it on the video from my running gait test. For the running gait test, I ran on a treadmill for about 45 minutes (overall) while the physical therapist videotaped me from the back and side. The PT then analyzed every aspect of my movement from hip to toes in video-taped slow motion.

My old running form was more straight legged and lazy, and the rotated hip causes the right leg to be a little longer than the left. As a result, my right hip compensates by tilting up during each step and the rest of my body compensates for the hip by tilting in various directions. My right ankle and foot overpronate (collapse the arch), and my lower back arches to the right more. This all explains why my right foot and ankle and lower back hurt sometimes.

After doing a little search on the web, it seems like a rotated pelvis is more common than I thought. It just isn't diagnosed that often because the symptoms are typically things like back or knee pain-- and when people have back and/or knee pain they tend to think the problem is the back or knee. Also, diagnosing it requires someone willing to spend time to do a full structural exam-- something most MD's don't have the time and/or knowledge to do. It's too bad because from what I've read, a small misalignment in the hips can cause pain pretty much everywhere in the body because everything is off-kilter.

Fixing my messed-up alignment is going to take a couple of months of strengthening and stretching. For the first phase (first month) I was given a set of stretching exercises that takes about 30 minutes to get through, and another set of strengthening exercises with light weights that takes at least 30 minutes to go through. The list is pretty thorough and works everything from my neck and shoulders down to my calves and hamstrings. The exercises aren't strenuous at all, just time consuming.

The one exercise specifically designed to stretch and push my right pelvis back into alignment is a high lunge. Basically, I lunge my right leg against a heavy chair or the wall with my right foot at about mid-thigh height bouncing three times. I am supposed to do this several times a day on my right side only. I have started to feel a little bit of aching in my right hip and I'm assuming this is because I am stretching the hip back into place.

As for my running form, I was told to lift my legs up more in front and in back. It feels like I am doing a combination of high-stepping and butt-kicking, but from the video my form looks much more fluid and efficient this way. I was given gradually increasing time intervals to slowly incorporate the new running form into my runs. I tried it yesterday morning and the new form felt really good compared to my old lazy legged form.

I'm amazed how these small changes could make such a big difference in just one week. I'm so glad that I found the root of my problem now when I'm still relatively young! Now the thought of being a 70 year old marathoner doesn't sound so impossible for me :)