Podcast 165: Chronic ankle problems: A long form discussion on functional neurology and biomechanics.

Chronic Ankle Problems: Neurologic effects in functional ankle instability,

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FAI: ankle instability. Proprioceptive issues

We have been saying this over and over, sorry for the repeated nature of this concept. But ankle sprains should not be taken lightly. This study showed:
"Conclusions: Individuals with unilateral FAI had increased error ipsilaterally (injured limb) for inversion movement detection (kinesthesia) and evertor force sense and increased error contralaterally (uninjured limb) for evertor force sense."

No only do they have loss of kinesthesia on the injured side, but this presents along with a reduced evertor force sense as well as contralateral processing deficits. The Brain is paying close attention to the first things that hits the ground, and noting how stable/unstable it is.
Ankle sprains cannot be taken lightly, even the mild ones. Plus, do not forget about the corruption of the frontal plane at the hip that often occurs after these events.

Bilateral Proprioceptive Evaluation in Individuals With Unilateral Chronic Ankle Instability

Andreia S. P. Sousa, PhD; João Leite, BSc; Bianca Costa, BSc; Rubim Santos, PhD

Escola Superior de Saúde do Porto, Centro de Estudos de Movimento e Actividade Humana, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Portugal

Andreia S. P. Sousa, João Leite, Bianca Costa, and Rubim Santos (2017) Bilateral Proprioceptive Evaluation in Individuals With Unilateral Chronic Ankle Instability. Journal of Athletic Training: April 2017, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 360-367.

A return to "the Kickstand Effect". So your foot is turned out, externally rotated ?

Amputee War Veteran Sergeant Christopher Melendez Became a Pro Wrestler
Read more at http://www.craveonline.com/mandatory/1053779-standing-tall-how-amputee-war-veteran-christopher-melendez-beca#XeD2LrZ2xmtXQ6um.99

Why is my foot turned out ?  A 3rd return to the solitary externally rotated foot.

Below you will find our 2 prior articles on this topic, but this is a relatable concept to other thing which we have embedded in many of our blog posts and podcasts over the last decade of sharing what we know.

In the photo above the brave Army Veteran Sergeant Melendez one can see the concept brilliantly as he only has one limb.  One can see the concept in full play, he must balance his body mass over one point, not two like the rest of us lucky folk.  In trying to balance over one point, if the foot is straight forward (if one is blessed with close to neutral torsional bone alignment) one will have good stability in the sagittal plane (forward /back) but will be at risk to fall, drift or sway into the frontal plane. Here Sergeant Melendez displays the foot and limb turn out into the frontal plane so that he can use the quadriceps to help him protect into that frontal plane, plus, by situating his base posture in more of an externally rotated position (likely losing internal rotation capability over time, unless forcibly maintained through specific exercises) he can more fully and skillfully engage all 3 divisions of the gluteus maximus and medius, and perhaps hamstrings and adductors and who knows what else, to maintain a more stable and likely less fatiguable posture. Go ahead, try it for yourself, this is easier to balance and maintain that a straight sagittal foot posturing. The one trouble he might have, is not deviating too much, or too often, into a frontal plane drift hip-pelvis posture. This will put much aberrant compressive load onto the roof of the femoral head-acetabular interval, where most of us begin a degenerative hip arthritis journey, unfortunately. 

Side note:   So you might think your client has FAI ?  Maybe start here, our thinking might lead you done a helpful path to get started. Search our blog for FAI as well.

here are the 2 prior articles on the topic, with video.  Watch for this one, it is everywhere out in the world, walking amongst us.  
Thank you for your service Sergeant Melendez.  Here is the article written by K. Thor Jensen, on Crave Online.  

https://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/14262793786/gait-problem-the-solitary-externally-rotated

https://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/40617674450/a-return-to-the-solitary-externally-rotated-foot

Shawn & Ivo, The Gait Guys

The extra-articular hip impingements

There continues to be a plethora of research and dialogue on the femoral acetabular impingements (FAI), the intra-articular impingements.  But we must not forget about the extra-articular impingements about the hip. A common one we see is the Ischiofemoral variety whereby the quadratus femoris muscle gets pinched between the ischial tuberosity and the femur.  We wrote about it, see the link below.  This one gets mistake for proximal hamstring tendonopathies by some we suspect. We suspect, however this is pure speculation, that the two most common are #1 and #3.

This article outlines some of the common extra-articular impingement syndromes:

 1) Ischiofemoral impingement: as we discuss in our article

 "2) Subspine impingement: mechanical conflict occurs between an enlarged or malorientated anterior inferior iliac spine and the distal anterior femoral neck.

3) Iliopsoas impingement: mechanical conflict occurs between the iliopsoas muscle and the labrum, resulting in distinct anterior labral pathology.

4) Deep gluteal syndrome: pain occurs in the buttock due to the entrapment of the sciatic nerve in the deep gluteal space.

5) Pectineofoveal impingement: pain occurs when the medial synovial fold impinges against overlying soft tissue, primarily the zona orbicularis. "

Ischiofemoral Impingement
https://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/110564772099/ischial-femoral-impingement-you-have-to-know-what

Current concepts in the diagnosis and management of extra-articular hip impingement syndromes.  Nakano N1, Yip G1, Khanduja V2.
Int Orthop. 2017 Jul;41(7):1321-1328. doi: 10.1007/s00264-017-3431-4. Epub 2017 Apr 11.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28401279

Difficult hip presentations. Coordination of deep hip muscle activity is often altered in symptomatic femoroacetabular impingement (FAI).

If your clinic is anything like ours, you are regularly seeing failed therapy cases of hip pain walk into your clinic. Many of these cases have been diagnosed clinically or with imaging as FAI (femoral acetabular impingement (syndrome)). FAI can give all kinds of hip pain presentations around the front, side or back of the hip, groin and pelvis, even with referral into the knee. Lets make no mistake, these are difficult cases.
The attached study suggests that these often difficult cases are fraught with undefined parameters. These cases can be difficult for us all, particularly if one do not have the clinical examination skills to tease out what muscles are not working, which ones are over working, what has happened to joint centration, how the client loads the hip, what the pelvis posturing attitude is and what motor stabilization strategies are being deployed. Lumbar, pelvis and hip posturing and stabilzation is key in understanding FAI and these often vague and frustrating cases. Determing how the client deploys stacking of the lower limb joints and how they then deploy these strategies in gait and running is paramount to your success in assisting these client cases. This is a deeply multifactorial problem and often why these issues do not get resolved. 

Recently I just closed yet another case with a 21 year old female who had FAI and labral tear surgery 2 years ago. She had been told she would always have some pain and never run again. As many of these cases often proceed, after defining all of the issues above, it was clear she had many unaddressed components postoperatively. It appeared many components had not been addressed preoperatively, and had they been addressed, I suspect she may have not needed surgery. These multitudes of dysfunctional components can lead to FAI and labral damage. Many torn labrums do not need surgery, as evidenced by how many clients come out of surgery still having the same pre-operative pain as well as how many improve or resolve by a non-surgical approach to addressing all of the components above.

This study, by Diamond et al compared coordination of deep hip muscles between people with and without symptomatic FAI using analysis of muscle synergies (i.e. patterns of activity of groups of muscles activated in synchrony) during gait. The study utilized intramuscular fine-wire and surface electrodes EMG activity of selected deep and superficial hip muscles.  
This study found a significant correlation with the quadratus femoris muscle, one we have repeatedly found problematic over the years. This study was nice to read, it confirmed many of the issues we have found rooted in these often difficult cases. The study surmised that 

“coordination of deep hip muscles in the synergy related to hip joint control during early swing differed between groups. This phase involves movement towards the impingement position, which has relevance for the interpretation of synergy differences and potential clinical importance. ”

We strongly refer you back to our podcast #99 to look into the gluteus medius during swing phase. This is a key component to one’s deeper understanding of how complex the hip works, during both stance and swing. We all tend to get too caught up in stance phase mechanics because that is the one we can see and assess most clearly, however, if one does not understand how vital the gluteus medius is in swing phase limb targeting through the sagittal plane, one is likely missing a big piece of a client’s clinical puzzle. One can do all the dynamic and functional movement and stabilization therapy they wish, but if one does not understand the swing phase mechanics, and perhaps most importantly, if one does not reteach a client how to make the necessary adaptive gait changes to employ the therapeutic work the changes remain on the therapy table and never cross over into functionally using them. The clinician must address the client’s previously deeply rooted gait motor program. A client may have in their bank account the new functional abilities they have been taught, but they likely have not been taught how to deploy them in a new more appropriate gait strategy. 

-Dr. Shawn Allen

1. Coordination of deep hip muscle activity is altered in symptomatic femoroacetabular impingement.
Laura E Diamond, Wolbert Van den Hoom, Kim L Bennell, Tim V Wrigley, Rana S Hinman, John O’ Donnell, Paul Hodges

2. J Neurophysiol. 2014 Jul 15;112(2):374-83. doi: 10.1152/jn.00138.2014. Epub 2014 Apr 30. A neuromechanical strategy for mediolateral foot placement in walking humans.  Rankin BL

3. Podcast 99: How foot placement, the glutes and cross over gait all come together and make sense.

4. https://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/133206339519/podcast-99-how-foot-placement-the-glutes-and

Does hill running equate to biking when it comes to pathomechanics ?Think about it, when  you are hill running, one leg is in extension while the lead leg is in more extremes (compared to road running) of hip flexion reaching up the hill for the next step. Isn’t this similar to biking ? On the bike one is bent over leaning forward, the lead leg is in extremes of flexion while the foot on the bottom crank has that same hip in extension.  So does hill running equate to biking ? Well, no. But then it comes to approximating anterior hip structures, there are some similarities. You cannot deny that there seems to be some similarities to pathomechanics.This was a post from a few weeks ago, but this week in our online teleseminar class we went over these principles.  We talked about some of the same biomechanical principles and vulnerabilities in hill running and when in biking.Might be a good time to revisit this brief blog post and see why we had hill running and biking in the same conversation.

Dr. Shawn Allen

Here is the hill running blog post where we mentioned a few things.
http://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/143841190479/when-you-run-up-a-hill-most-of-the-cross-over

“When you run up a hill, most of the cross over gait disappears. Runners will tend toward beautifully stacked lower limb joints.”- Dr. Allen

Are people running up a hill more likely to tend towards a cross over gait style, in other words tend toward a more narrow gait step or a wider gait step ?

Watch people run up hill closely. Even if they are cross over (narrow foot fall) runners, when running up hills a few things will negate much of the narrow foot fall.

1- Running up hill requires more gluteals, more power is needed for all that extra required hip extension to power up the hill. More gluteal max use can, and will, spill over into the posterior fibers of the gluteus medius and this will tend to abduct the leg/hip and reduce some of the cross over tendency.

2- When one runs up a hill, there is a forward pitch of the upper torso, often with a some degree of forward pitch occurring at the hips. More importantly, because one is running up hill, they are stepping up and so more than normal hip flexion is necessary than in normal running. The forward pitch of the body and the greater degree of hip flexion is the culprit here. If the hip/leg is adducted in a cross over style, adding this to a more than normal flexing hip, it will create a scenario for anterior hip impingement and risk of femoral acetabular impingement (FAI) syndromes. Go ahead, test it for yourself. Lie on your back and flex your hip, drawing your knee straight up towards your shoulder.  Pretty good range correct ?  Now, flex the hip drawing your knee towards your navel, adducting it a little across your body. Feel the abrupt range of motion loss and possible pinch in the front of the hip ?  FAI.  This is what would happen if you utilized a cross over gait, narrow foot strike gait. The goes for mountain/sleep hill hikers as well. 

This is why, if you are a narrow foot striker, a near-cross over type of runner, you will see it disappear when you run up hills.  

If you get anterior hip pain running up hills, force a wider step width and reduce the possible impingement at the anterior hip joint. Just make sure you have enough ankle dorsiflexion to tackle the hill in the first place. If not, you may welcome some foot and ankle stuff to the table along with the hip.  

Likely obvious stuff to most of the readers here, but sometimes it is nice to point out the obvious.  Hills, just because they are there, doesn’t mean you have the parts to run them safely.

Dr. Shawn Allen

The Elusive Iliocapsularis

As with many things, one thing often leads to another. I had a patient with anterior hip pain and what i believed was iliopsoas dysfunction, but I wanted to know EXACTLY which muscles attached to the hip capsule, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

I turned up some great info, including a nice .pdf lecture, which I am including the link to along with a second paper that began my journey.

I had thought the iliopsoas attached to the hip capsule, but it turns out it doesn’t, but the iliocapsularis does along with a host of others, including one of my favs, the gluteus minimus, which was believed to be part of the psoas, but actually is a completely separate muscle.  Did I mention that these are  FREE, FULL TEXT articles?

Anyway, I began reading, with great interest, about the iliocapsularis and I found yet another great review paper on it, along with mechanical hip pain. This last paper has some real clinical pearls and I recommend reading it the next opportunity you have a bit of time.

I began thinking about when the iliopsoas fires in the gait cycle (terminal stance to mid swing). So, it is firing eccentrically at pre swing (perhaps limiting or attenuating hip extension?), then concentrically through early and mid swing, when it becomes electrically silent. During running gait, the activation pattern is similar. This muscle is also implicated in femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), or more correctly anterior inferior iliac spine subspine impingement (AIIS Impingement) or iliopsoas impingement (IPI). They all can cause anterior hip pain and they should all be considered in your differential.

The iliocapsularis muscle has its proximal attachment at the anterior-inferior iliac spine and the anterior hip capsule and does not attach to the labrum . Its distal insertion is just distal to the lesser trochanter. It can sometimes inset into the iliofemoral ligament and/or the trochanteric line of the femur. It is innervated by a branch of the femoral nerve (L2-4). It is believed to act to raise the capsule of the hip and be an accessory stabilizer of the hip. 

OK, there you have it. the iliocapsularis. Another muscle you didn’t know you could access. It pays to know your anatomy!

https://www.mcjconsulting.com/meetings/2012/asm/ePosters/files/ISHA_Poster_202.pdf

 http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.12111320

Podcast 73: Cross Fit and Squatting. Knees out ?

Podcast 73: Femoral and Tibial Torsions and Squatting: Know your Squatting Truths and Myths

*Show sponsor: www.newbalancechicago.com

Lems Shoes.  www.lemsshoes.comMention GAIT15 at check out for a 15% discount through August 31st, 2014.

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Today’s Show notes:

1. Bioengineers create functional 3D brain-like tissue   http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2014/nibib-11.htm

2.  A Novel Shear Reduction Insole Effect on the Thermal Response to Walking Stress, Balance, and Gait

http://dst.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/08/07/1932296814546528.abstract

 

3.  Hi Shawn and Ivo, There is a lively debate in the Crossfit community about “knees out” during squatting. I have attached a blog post. It might be a good blog post or podcast segment. 

http://dsstrength.com/2013/11/11/supple-leopards-vs-the-world-my-take-on-the-knees-out-debate/

 

4. Shoe Finder ?

http://www.runnersworld.com/shoe-finder/shoe-advisor?cid=socSG_20140817_29829646

 

5.  Michael wrote: “I know this is too broad a topic for facebook, but I was wondering what your general recommendation would be for someone with flat feet and exaggerated, constant over-pronation. I’ve tried strengthening my calves and ankles, but have seen no noticeable reduction in the automatic "rolling in” of my feet whenever walking or standing. I can consciously correct the over-pronation, of course, but as soon as I stop tensing my arch muscle, everything flops back down.“