When you're in the gym, you might notice that some exercises are harder on one side of your body than the other. When you lift a barbell, one side might come up faster or with more ease than the other. These are signs that you might have a neuromuscular imbalance on one side of your body. However, you can correct these imbalances.
Physiology
To understand muscular imbalances, you need to understand how our muscles function. When you lift a weight and perform an exercise, such as a barbell curl, your body creates a "neuromuscular recruitment pattern," according to the book "Essentials of Strength and Conditioning." That means the more you do that barbell curl, the more efficiently your neurotransmitters will fire each time, making it less difficult the more often you do it. This is one of the reasons the biggest strength gains are made toward the beginning of a workout program.
Isolateral Exercises
One of the easiest ways to test for muscular imbalances is to do an isolateral exercise. In an isolateral exercise, your limbs move independently of one another. For example, a barbell chest press would not be an isolateral exercise, but a dumbbell chest press would be because your arms move the dumbbells without the assistance of the other arm. The next time you are at the gym, use dumbbells, cables, or machines instead of a barbell for your normal exercise routines. If you feel more fatigue in one muscle group on one side of your body compared to the other, you might have a muscular imbalance.
Examples
Muscular imbalances are common. Most of us shoot, throw, write, kick and do all other sorts of activities on one side of our body without doing them on the opposite side. In doing so, we create neuromuscular recruitment patterns for various movements on the preferred side. When many people lift a barbell, they initiate the lift with their dominate side, while their nondominant side trails behind, causing the bar to dip to the weaker side. Another common example is a leg curl, where many weightlifters favor their dominant leg.
Adaptations
Once you have assessed a muscular imbalance, start using isolateral exercises in your workout routine for that particular muscle group. You can do them exclusively or inclusively, but exclusively will yield you the fastest results. For example, if you feel you have a muscular imbalance that favors your right side when you do a chest press, start doing chest presses using dumbbells, bands, cables, kettlebells or anything that allows your arms to move independently of each other. You will still be working the same muscle groups but you will be able to do so in a way that corrects your imbalances, according to the book "Strength Training Anatomy."
Considerations
It is not uncommon for your weaker side to be considerably less strong or even shake as you perform a lift. Decrease the weight on the weaker side so both sides can perform the same amount of reps. You should notice a difference in a few weeks of regular strength training. Remember, a muscle imbalance is neuromuscular, not necessarily hypertrophic. You probably don't look at yourself in the mirror and see one side of your body being larger than the other, it's simply a matter of recruiting the proper amount of neurons so both sides can perform an exercise equally.
References
- "Essentials of Strength and Conditioning"; Thomas R. Baechle, Roger W. Eargle; 2008
- "Strength Training Anatomy"; Frederic Delavier; 2010
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