Best Shoes for Leg Length Discrepancy: Where the Lift Goes

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The short answer

Buy one pair of a shoe whose insole lifts out, and put the lift where the insole was in the short leg’s shoe. That is the whole mechanical answer. The shoe for the short leg gets the lift; the shoe for the long leg stays standard; both must be the same model and size so that nothing else differs between your feet.

The most room to work with on this site is the Orthofeet Coral — a quarter-inch (6.35 mm) removable insole that Orthofeet states can be swapped for a custom orthotic, in a shoe the brand sells as extra depth, with a published heel-to-toe drop of 15.7 mm, the highest figure on this site. $119, women’s.

For men, or for a running shoe, it is the Brooks Ghost 18 or the Adrenaline GTS 25 — 5.0 mm and 4.9 mm of lab-measured insole respectively, both confirmed removable by Brooks, both in four widths.

If your discrepancy is more than about a centimetre, no shoe on this page solves it. That is a cobbler adding material to the outside of the sole, or a prescribed full-length device, and it should be measured properly first.

Why the lift runs out of room

A heel lift sits inside the back of the shoe and raises your heel relative to the shoe. The shoe, however, has not changed shape. Every millimetre you add lifts your heel further up the inside of the heel counter, and at some point the counter no longer holds your heel at all — the shoe starts to slip at the back, you grip with your toes to keep it on, and you have traded one problem for several.

Where exactly that happens depends on the shoe and the foot, but the figure quoted in practice sits somewhere around a quarter to three-eighths of an inch — 6 to 10 mm — for a wedge sitting on top of the existing footbed. Which is why the first move is not to add, but to subtract.

The free correction: take the insole out

If you remove the shoe’s own insole on the short-leg side and put a lift of the same thickness in its place, your heel ends up higher relative to the ground without ending up higher relative to the heel counter. You have spent the shoe’s own material rather than your heel’s headroom. The thickness of that insole is therefore the single most useful number on the whole subject, and it is published for four shoes on this site.

The side effect nobody mentions: a lift changes the shoe’s drop

Heel-to-toe drop is the height difference between the heel and the forefoot of a shoe. Add 6 mm of lift under one heel and you have not just made that leg longer — you have turned a 10 mm shoe into a 16 mm shoe on that foot only.

That matters in two directions, and both are predictable:

• More load goes forward onto the ball of that foot. A higher drop tips you onto the forefoot. If the lifted side starts aching under the ball of the foot a few weeks in, that is the mechanism, not a coincidence — see ball-of-foot pain.
• Less demand goes through that calf and Achilles. Raising a heel shortens the calf-to-fascia chain, which is why heel lifts are also used deliberately for Achilles tendonitis. If you have Achilles pain on the short side, the lift may help twice over. If you have it on the long side, you now have an asymmetry working against you.

So pick the base shoe with the finished drop in mind, not the starting one. A 15.7 mm shoe plus a 6 mm lift is over 21 mm of effective drop on that foot, which is a lot of forefoot load. A lower-drop shoe leaves more headroom for the correction before the forefoot starts complaining — which is one of the few situations where a modest drop is an advantage rather than a compromise.

Where each size of correction actually goes

Choosing a shoe for an external build-up

If your correction is going on the outside of the sole, the shoe is a different purchase. Three things matter and only one of them is comfort:

1. A thick, solid midsole to bond to. A cobbler needs material. A maximal shoe is easier to build than a thin one, and this is the one situation where the tallest stack on the market is a practical advantage rather than a preference — see the stack height chart for every published figure.
2. A rocker, if you can get one. Adding a slab under one shoe makes it stiffer and flatter, and a sole that already rolls tolerates that far better than a flat one. The shoes with a stated rocker are listed on our hallux rigidus page, which is built around exactly that feature.
3. A shoe you can buy again. A build-up is permanent to the pair. If the model is discontinued next season you are back to square one, so a long-running model in a staple colourway beats this year’s novelty.

Take both shoes to the cobbler, not one, and tell them the measured discrepancy rather than asking them to judge it.

Introducing a lift: go gradually

A body that has adapted to a leg-length difference for years has adapted everywhere: the pelvis, the spine, the hips and both feet. Changing the difference overnight changes all of those at once, which is why a correction that is right on paper can still produce a new ache in the first fortnight. The usual approach in practice is to start low and build up.

• Start with part of the difference. Often half or less of the measured figure, in the short leg’s shoe, in place of the removed insole where the shoe allows it.
• Add a few millimetres at a time. Wear each step for a week or two before adding more, so you can tell which change caused which feeling.
• Stop where you feel best, not where the number says. Many people settle on less than the full measured correction, and that is a normal outcome, not a failure.
• Watch both sides. New pain on the lifted side under the ball of the foot points at the higher drop, covered above; new pain on the long side, at the hip or the outside of the knee, can mean the correction has gone too far or too fast.

Do all of this with the person who measured you. A lift is cheap, but the time spent wearing the wrong one is not.

Running and sport with a leg-length difference

Running magnifies everything about a discrepancy, because each step lands on one leg at a time with several times body weight going through it. Three points matter for runners in particular.

• Where you land changes what a heel lift does. A heel-only lift raises the heel, and if you land on your midfoot or forefoot the heel is off the ground for much of each step. A full-length lift, which raises the whole foot, spreads the correction across the part of the shoe you actually land on.
• Running shoes change between versions. The same rule as for walking shoes applies, more strictly: both shoes the same model, the same version and the same size, because a version change can alter the drop by several millimetres on its own.
• Build mileage back slowly after a change. Treat a new lift like a new shoe: shorter, easier runs first, and one change at a time.

Court and field sports, with their lunges and cuts, are harder on a heel lift than running, because the heel lifts in the shoe as you push off sideways. A full-length lift or an external build-up holds better there.

Barefoot, sandals and house shoes

A lift only works when you are wearing the shoe it is in. Walking around the house barefoot, or in slippers and sandals without a correction, puts you back on the uncorrected difference for hours a day. For a small discrepancy that may not matter. For a larger one, or if the symptoms that brought you here come back in the evening, it is worth having a correction in the shoes you wear at home too: a house shoe with a removable footbed can take a lift like any other, and a cobbler can build up a sandal’s sole the same way as a shoe’s.

Why your feet have different problems

An uncorrected discrepancy of any size makes the two feet do different jobs, and that is often what brings people to a foot clinic rather than the leg length itself.

The long leg has to shorten itself, so that foot tends to roll in and flatten, which lowers it. The short leg has to reach for the ground, so that foot tends to stay higher-arched and roll out. Over years you get an asymmetrical pattern: a flatter, more pronated foot on one side and a stiffer, more supinated one on the other — which means plantar fasciitis on one foot and a lateral problem on the other, or a callus pattern that is nothing like its opposite number. In one small study of people with plantar fasciitis in one foot, the painful side was the longer leg in 21 of 23 cases.

If one of your feet has a problem the other has never had, and nobody has measured your leg lengths, that is worth raising. Our pages on overpronation and supination cover each side, and posterior tibial tendon dysfunction covers the case where the flattening side is actively collapsing.

Which shoe for which plan

What footwear cannot do

It cannot change the length of a bone. In children and adolescents a significant structural discrepancy is sometimes managed surgically, by slowing growth on the long side or lengthening the short one, and that is an orthopaedic decision made on serial measurements over years. Footwear is how an adult discrepancy is managed, and management is the correct word.

It also cannot tell you how much to correct. Full correction of a long-standing discrepancy is often not what is done, because a body that has adapted over decades does not always welcome being straightened in one go — the usual approach is partial correction, introduced gradually, with the amount decided by how you respond rather than by the measured number. Anyone who tells you to put your whole measured difference under one heel on day one is giving you arithmetic rather than advice.

And the limit of the figures on this page: insole thickness is published for four shoes out of forty-five, three of them by one independent laboratory. Heel-counter stiffness — the property that decides how much lift a shoe will hold before your heel slips — is published for four. Nothing here is a measurement of a lift, a discrepancy or a correction, because those are measurements of you, not of a shoe.

After a hip or knee replacement

A new difference in leg length after a hip or knee replacement is one of the commonest reasons people start looking for a lift. Two things are worth knowing before you buy one.

• A felt difference is not always a real one. In the weeks after surgery, tight or weak muscles around the new joint can tilt the pelvis and make a leg feel longer or shorter than it measures. Many of these perceived differences settle as the muscles recover, which is why surgeons usually wait some months and re-measure before adding a correction.
• A real difference is managed the same way as any other. Once it has been measured and has persisted, a lift in the short leg’s shoe, introduced gradually, is the usual answer, and the shoe advice on this page applies unchanged.

Raise it at your follow-up appointment rather than correcting it yourself: the surgeon who did the operation has the measurements from before and after, and those are the numbers that matter.

Children and teenagers

A leg-length difference in a growing child is followed over time rather than treated once, because the difference can change as the child grows. Small differences are common and usually need nothing. Larger ones are tracked by an orthopaedic surgeon with repeated measurements, and the options depend on how much growth is left. A shoe lift is often used in the meantime to keep the child comfortable and level, and the same practical rules apply: a shoe whose insole lifts out, a matched pair, and a correction introduced in steps. Children grow out of shoes quickly, so a removable lift that moves from pair to pair is usually more practical than a cobbler’s build-up.

Where to buy

Disclosure: the links below are paid links. If you buy through them Amazon pays us a commission at no cost to you. Commissions never influence a score, a ranking or the seal, and nothing on this page is scored because none of these shoes has been tested by us — see our independence policy.

One practical note before you click: you need two pairs of the same shoe only if you want a spare. For the correction itself you need one pair, same model and size, with the lift in one shoe of it.

Before any of this, have the discrepancy measured. A lift built on a guess, or on a functional discrepancy that should have been treated instead, is the one way this goes wrong.

Questions patients ask

What shoes are best for a leg length discrepancy?

The ones whose insole lifts out, worn as a matched pair. On published figures the Orthofeet Coral gives back the most at 6.35 mm, and the Brooks Ghost 18 is the best running shoe for it at 5.0 mm of lab-measured insole with the stiffest heel counter on this site. For a discrepancy large enough to need an external build-up, the HOKA Bondi 9, because a cobbler needs material to bond to.

How much heel lift can go inside a shoe?

Roughly 6 to 10 mm as a wedge on top of the existing footbed, and more if you remove the shoe’s own insole first and put the lift in its place. Past that your heel rides up out of the heel counter and the shoe stops holding your foot — which is a worse problem than the one you were correcting. Above about 20 mm the correction belongs outside the shoe.

Does the lift go in the short leg’s shoe or the long one?

The short leg. The aim is to raise the short side up to the long one, not to compensate on the long side. The long leg’s shoe stays exactly as it came.

Can I just wear a thicker-soled shoe on one foot?

It is the commonest improvised answer and it causes its own problem. Two different shoes differ in more than height — drop, midsole firmness, heel-counter stiffness, rocker and width all change at once, so you are asking your two legs to work in two different machines. Two different drops alone can build a functional discrepancy of several millimetres in the opposite plane. Same model, same size, lift inside one of them.

How do I know if my legs are actually different lengths?

You get it measured. The clinic version is to stand you level and place calibrated blocks under the short side until the pelvis sits straight, usually confirmed with an X-ray or scanogram if the number matters. What you cannot do reliably is judge it from how your legs feel, or from lying on a bed and comparing ankles, because a tilted pelvis mimics a short leg convincingly. The distinction between a genuinely shorter bone and a leg being held short decides whether a lift is the right treatment at all.

Will a heel lift help my back pain?

Sometimes, and the honest answer is that the evidence is mixed. A measurable discrepancy can tilt the pelvis and load one side of the lumbar spine more, and some people get clear relief from correcting it. But back pain has many causes, the studies on lift therapy are small and inconsistent, and a lift introduced too quickly or built on a functional discrepancy can provoke symptoms rather than settle them. It is a reasonable thing to try under guidance, not a reliable cure, and it is not something to buy on the strength of a web page — this one included.

Why does only one of my feet hurt?

That is one of the characteristic signs. The long leg has to get out of the way, so that foot flattens and rolls in; the short leg reaches for the ground, so that foot stays higher and rolls out. The result is two feet doing different jobs, and the problems that follow are asymmetrical — heel pain on one side, outer-foot pain on the other. If one foot has a problem its partner has never had, leg length is worth checking.

Do I need a custom orthotic or will an off-the-shelf lift do?

For a small discrepancy in a shoe with a removable insole, an off-the-shelf heel wedge is a reasonable first try and costs very little. Once the correction has to be full-length, or has to be combined with arch support for the foot that is flattening, a prescribed device is the sensible route — and then the shoe needs to be one that will physically accept it. The Orthofeet Coral is the shoe here that states in writing that its insole can be swapped for a custom one.

Is it normal to have one leg longer than the other?

Yes. Small differences between the legs are very common and most cause no symptoms at all. A difference usually only matters if it is large, or if it is the likely explanation for a symptom such as one-sided back, hip or foot pain.

Do I need to correct a difference of 5 mm?

Usually not, if it causes no symptoms. Differences under about a centimetre are often left alone. If you do have one-sided symptoms that a clinician thinks are linked, a few millimetres in place of the removed insole is a cheap, reversible thing to try.

Can a leg-length difference cause plantar fasciitis?

It can contribute. The long leg’s foot tends to roll in and flatten as the body shortens that leg, which loads the plantar fascia on that side, and in one small study one-sided plantar fasciitis was strongly linked with the longer leg. If you have heel pain in one foot only and nobody has checked your leg lengths, it is worth asking. See plantar fasciitis.

Related guides and reviews

• Heel-to-toe drop chart · stack height chart — the two figures a lift changes, for every shoe on this site.
• Shoes for overpronation · shoes for supination — the long-leg foot and the short-leg foot respectively.
• Posterior tibial tendon dysfunction — when the flattening side is actively collapsing rather than just compensating.
• Shoes for Achilles tendonitis — the condition heel lifts are most often used for deliberately.
• Ball-of-foot pain — the predictable side effect on the lifted side.
• Shoes for back pain · shoes for hip pain — the symptoms that most often bring this to light.
• Orthotic Volume Rating — how we measure whether a shoe will take a device.
• Orthofeet Coral · Brooks Ghost 18 · Adrenaline GTS 25 · Glycerin 23 · HOKA Bondi 9 · HOKA Transport 2
• Shoe spec database — every published number on this site, and who published it.