That’s not good that your leg is shorter! However, it’s certainly the case that when you’re working on the tight, weak muscles that they can get irritated and tighten up more (temporarily). A person that’s normal and healthy will get tight and sore after unaccustomed exercise (called DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). It stands to reason that when you have dysfunction you’ll be more prone to DOMS. If the muscles tighten your sacrum will pull further out of position and your short leg will get shorter. Provided it’s a temporary set back it’s nothing to worry about.

Stretching is *sort of* the last thing to think about. That’s what I said in the book and mostly I stand by that. However, one of the main culprits for me (and I suspect for most) is a weak, tight piriformis on the symptomatic side. The piriformis can freak out badly when you stretch or strengthen it so I got into the habit of leaving it well alone. I managed to get myself fixed without ever really tackling that piriformis directly. It strengthened and stretched just through daily living – but not completely. It’s stayed a bit tight long after the OA problem is fixed. I think now that had I tackled the piriformis sooner I’d have been fixed sooner. I now believe it is likely to be a key muscle.
Looking back on how my hip problem developed I can remember that initially it was like a groin tweak – no problems with the gluteal muscles. Not too much restricted movement. As I limped about and avoided irritating the groin tweak I remember more and more soreness developing in my glutes. It eventually started to feel like broken glass. As the glute soreness increased they level of dysfunction got worse.

In retrospect I think that as I guarded the sore groin muscles the piriformis gradually atrophied, weakened and shortened.

Would things have progressed differently if I’d managed to prevent that deterioration of the priformis to happen? I think so. In the early days physios did give me exercises to strengthen / stretch the piriformis but they were too aggressive and they made things worse.

So now I’m thinking that whilst standard approaches to stretching and strengthening the piriformis might be out of the question until you reach a good state of recovery, there may well be ways to target and improve the piriformis in non-aggressive ways.

I’ll get the post written ASAP.

Oh my gosh. I had a heel lift that I got early November, but quit using it for a few reasons… Anyways. I just put it on the floor to see how my legs are doing and my leg is even shorter now! I think maybe my over doing it that caused more pain and tightness has worsened my leg length. Sigh,, the ups and downs of this issue! But yes haha, the toilet thing still makes me happy.

Looking forward to the new info, glad you’re getting even better as well!

I have so many shouldn’t/couldn’t thoughts as well. But I am trying to ignore them and move forward. Isn’t stretching the last thing to think about though? I will wait for the next post!

Thanks for the feedback!

Ha ha – I know what you mean re getting off the toilet! The things we get excited about 🙂 That’s a very good sign – it sounds as if you’re doing a good job of leveling off your pelvis. Keep working at it and things will keep improving.

I’m currently working on some blog posts that provide a slightly different way of looking at things and some new exercises that might help you towards that goal a little faster. I still have a bit of restriction in flexion that makes weightlifting squats difficult – it’s loosening off fast now though thanks to some great suggestions from a body building and strength coach that I’m now working with.

I think you’ll find that bending the hip past 90 degrees is the last thing to fix. There are lots of muscles that will tighten up and restrict hip flexion. You can’t balance out these muscles until your pelvis is level and you are able to control and stabilize it. In my case, I had the hip stiffness for so long that I got some irrational ‘rules’ fixed in my head about what I couldn’t/shouldn’t do. That stopped me from stretching out the hip muscles when really there was nothing stopping me from doing so.

I’ll get that info posted up in the next few days.

At first I put too much time into the program and my leg got very tired.. I am now cutting back and focusing on doing less to do more each day. I’m feeling pretty good about the program and am slowly getting stronger. I can now get off the toilet with both legs VS leaning to the good side and getting up lol.. that’s really cool for me!
Next, I hope that I can start to bend my leg past 90 degrees and fix my short leg. This is my goal and I only have hope and believe it is fixable because of you.