Looking at my squats it can be overtly seen that i have a strength imbalance between the left and right leg. It seems to cause a few things to happen on the concentric portion of the lift:
-hips rotate to the left
-right knee comes inward
-left knee comes outward
I’ve been to a chiro in recent times and we found that along with some tightness in the hips one of my legs would be ‘artificially’ shorter than the other by 1-2cm.
(Doing a 90/90 hamstring stretch my ‘long’ right leg would feel much tighter and harder to stretch than my ‘short’ left leg.)
These symptoms would suggest some kind of problem with the sacroiliac region.
In the past i have strained my back doing deadlifts using a mixed grip, applying slightly uneven pulling forces, the strain would always be lateral of the spine , pretty much where your internal/external obliques start. Strain in that area indicates sacroiliac dysfunction.
I’ve read that overpronating feet can also be one of the causes of sacroiliac sublixation.
The sacroiliac joint/bone doesnt really move a whole hell of alot , but if something is a little bit out of place it can cause alot of muscles around the hip to tighten up and cause you trouble .
What im trying to figure out…is it the chicken or the egg ?
Am i getting tight hip muscles and strength imbalance BECAUSE OF pelvic misalignment ? Or is it the other way around where a strength imbalance CAUSES pelvic misalignment and then causes tightness ?
Or maybe im not even on the right track here ?
If you have any questions i will try to answer as best i can.
damn that is interesting. hopefully someone who knows will chime in…
i think sometimes you get a bit of a spiral / reciprocal facilitation thing where it can be hard if not impossible to figure THE cause… but you have two lines of approach on the problem, anyhow.
i think i found something in my travels about how tight muscles can create leg length imbalances. i wonder if the bones in one of your legs is longer than the bones in the other or whether it is more of a soft tissue thing creating the length imbalance. are your knees at the same height or is one knee higher than the other? do your unweighted squats look the same or can you get things looking more symmetrical if you really focus?
do you do your soft tissue work around your hips??
can you do pistols / one legged squats? string a resistance band around the squat rack and hold onto it if you need to. that way dysfunction in one or both legs should show up so you can figure what is going on with each separately. i wonder if your right hip is a bit weak which is allowing / making your right knee cave in. dunno. my left leg is stronger than my right and i really need to fight the urge to let my left leg do most of the work with two legged squats. how about step ups? how do they look for you?
[quote]alexus wrote:
can you do pistols / one legged squats? string a resistance band around the squat rack and hold onto it if you need to. that way dysfunction in one or both legs should show up so you can figure what is going on with each separately. i wonder if your right hip is a bit weak which is allowing / making your right knee cave in. dunno. my left leg is stronger than my right and i really need to fight the urge to let my left leg do most of the work with two legged squats. how about step ups? how do they look for you?[/quote]
Ill do some pistols tommorrow.
The chiro says the skeleton is normal, the soft tissue was creating the artificial length difference.
I can’t see your feet, but make sure they are pointing in the direction your knees travel. Looks like your body is trying to find a good position, but can’t. It’s also a lot easier to keep your knees pushed outward if your toes are pointing out.
Play with your stance width a bit. A small difference in width can make a big difference in stability.
And center the bar on your back. Looks like you’re an inch or so to the right.