How to fix muscle imbalances

What is muscle imbalance

Virtually all of the skeletal muscles in the body and the pair are arranged symmetrically - on the right and the left. Muscle imbalance - a violation of symmetry, size and strength mismatch pair of muscles or muscle groups.

In some cases, an imbalance can be seen, for example, when one hand or the pectoral muscle significantly larger than the other, while in others the difference is not so obvious, but it is felt during exercise.

For example, if one arm is stronger than the other, during a bench press barbell neck can be tilted to one side as a strong hand will squeeze it up faster.

Also, an imbalance may occur between the major muscle groups, such as the back and chest, triceps and biceps, the upper part of the legs and the muscles of the leg.

This not only looks bad, and reduces sports performance, but also can lead to injury. For example, if an athlete has pumped the chest and back muscles are not well developed, this increases the risk to injure the shoulders.

In addition, muscle imbalance leads to poor posture. For example, weak extensor muscles of the back and abdominal muscles hard compressed characteristic of hunched posture and muscle-rigid hip flexors can cause

excessive bending at the waist.

What causes muscular imbalances

There is no perfectly symmetrical body. Genetics influences muscle strength and susceptibility to hypertrophy, but pivotal role in the emergence of imbalances played by other factors.

Poorly designed program or its absence

Men often prefer to swing the chest, shoulders and arms, forgetting the back and legs. Women still pay attention to the legs and buttocks, afraid to do the exercises on the arms and shoulders, "not to become bullies."

As a result of those and others get muscular imbalances and asymmetrical body, which is far from ideal.

Lack of attention to technique

If during exercise does not follow the proper technique, the load can be displaced to one side.

Let's say you have a better-developed back muscles on the right side. When you are doing dumbbell thrust in the slope on the right hand, the back muscles can withstand the load, you observe the proper technique. On the left side of the weak back muscles quickly pass, the load is transferred to the shoulders.

If you do not pay attention to it, on the right side of the muscle will become more and more, there will be a noticeable muscle imbalance and the risk to injure his shoulder.

Lack of mobility of joints

Many people spend the whole day at your desk, while maintaining the correct position of the body. From that enslaves the muscles become rigid and limited mobility of the joints.

The body compensates for the lack of mobility of the wrong technique. As a result, some muscles are too great a burden, while others do not participate in the movement.

How to determine if you have muscle imbalances

The easiest way to determine the presence of asymmetry of paired muscles. Take the tailor's tape measure muscle on both sides and compare the numbers.

Measure the volume of limbs flexed. So you will not be able to squeeze the muscle ribbon and diminish the size.

Much more difficult to identify imbalances between the different groups of muscles, because your judgments are subjective.

Try to soberly assess the compliance of different muscle groups. If you have an obvious imbalance, you certainly notice it.

How to prevent muscle imbalances

Follow polyarticular exercises

There are isolated exercises that are working just one muscle group, and complex polyarticular exercises, under which are loaded with almost all the muscles of the body.

For example, if you're doing leg extension in the simulator, the quads are loaded only. When performing squats polyarticular main load goes to the hips, but the work also includes the buttocks and muscle bark.

Including their training polyarticular exercises, you are protecting the body from muscle imbalance. Even if you are completely excluded from the program develop certain muscles, they all will still be loaded and strengthened during training.

Add unilateral exercise

Unilateral exercises - a movement in which the two paired muscles work, but separately from each other. These exercises will help you to avoid load transfer with weak muscles more strong.

For example, performing a bench press with a barbell, you can shift the burden of the weak hands to stronger. Grief is lean, but you will be able to work with the selected weight, with each repetition exacerbating imbalances.

To prevent this, replace the exercise with a barbell on variants dumbbells or kettlebells. If your weak hand can not cope with the weight of the dumbbells, you have to choose the lighter shells, so that the difference in strength of limb will not grow.

Develop mobility

If your body lacks the mobility of the joints to do the exercises correctly, it will compensate for the disadvantages of poor technique.

For example, if you have hard muscles, hip flexors on the one hand, during squats with more weight you will be filled up on one side. Continuous increase in load will cause imbalance or injury.

Pay attention to your limits and try to correct them, until they become the cause of asymmetry or injury.

How to fix muscle imbalances

How to fix the asymmetry of paired muscles

To get rid of the imbalance of paired muscles, increase the number of repetitions for the weaker party in the 25-35%.

Suppose your left shoulder is less than the right. Typically you do 3 sets of 10 ups with dumbbells in hand. To strengthen a weak arm, add another approach to 10 repetitions for the left hand.

Right hand you'll be doing 30 reps, and left - 40 reps with the same weight.

If you do not want to increase the burden on the weak muscles that perform the same number of repetitions on the strengths and weaknesses. For this exercise, always start with a weak hand, to find out how many repetitions and weight with which you can perform.

How to correct the imbalance of muscle groups

If some muscles seem weak and underdeveloped in comparison with others, just add more stress: Increase the amount of exercise or weight workers. However, the total load must remain the same.

For example, if you decide to pump up weak legs, it is not necessary to arrange a separate training in addition to what you already do. This can result in overtraining and stop progress.

Instead, you need to rebuild their training so as to make room for the additional load on the legs. You shift the focus on one muscle group, eliminate the imbalance and have time to fully recover between sessions.

conclusions

To summarize:

• Muscle imbalance appears in the training process, when one muscle or muscle group is loaded with more and more than the other.
• To prevent an imbalance, it is necessary:
  • add to the program polyarticular exercises that load the muscles of the whole body;
  • perform unilateral exercises that stress the muscles paired separately;
  • develop mobility of joints and follow the technique.
• To correct the imbalance, we must ensure that strong muscles did not receive more load, and increase the intensity of study of weak muscles.

Do not leave without attention to their weaknesses, just eliminate muscle imbalance, then you will increase their performance and reduce the risk of injury.