bulaboy said:
Same question to you Bob. Is your short leg weaker than the other? If so have you tried to build it up? Will it maintain strength?
Polio (infantile paralysis) is a disease that is kind of like getting the flu...you 'have' it, then it's gone. It's a virus.
Polio kills the nerves that control the motors of the body, the muscles. Simply put, the affects of polio are muscles that cannot be made to contract by the motor nerves that control them.
My polio centered in my right leg, below the knee primarily. From age three to age sixteen i went thru seven major and several minor operations. Some of these involved up to three months in a cast. This resulted in my right foot being two shoe sizes shorter (and yet wider..go figure) due to be restricted in those casts during much of my growth years. Rather like the Japanese binding of female feet to keep them dainty...heheh!
Needless to say that even after decades of racing and training there is a noticeable 'horsepower' difference between my legs. This gets much more pronounced as the time length of the effort grows. You know how racers can be seen on camera to be losing their form on the bike? This effect starts in my right leg. Then (maybe alienator does the same?) I find myself compensating with the stronger leg to make up for the loss of efficiency in the weak leg.
Still, it's great just coming across the line in the chase group or with the pack. It's a good feeling to give a max effort no matter the result.
Right now I'm 53 years old and staring post-polio syndrome right in the eye. This syndrome is the rapid loss of strength and control of limbs/muscles of polio (man, i hate the terms 'victims' and 'survivors')...those that had polio. It occurs in middle to late stages of life and the weird thing is that most affects those that trained to overcome their weaknesses.
Uh oh...not a good prognosis for a guy that raced and trained since I was eighteen!
No worries! Folks like alienator, bulaboy and I get back up from the road and keep on keepin' on.
I raced in the Para-olympic road race am proud to say I got my ass handed to me by the great time trial champion, Alan Kingsberry. Prior to the Para games, Alan was on a U.S. record pace in the nats time trial when he was struck, broadside, by a cement truck! His Tibia/Fibia on one leg has a 2" side-to-side offset, is shorter and yet he still managed to throttle it wide open to beat the best the world could throw at him.