Are your muscle and strength imbalances messing with more than just your workouts, at this
point maybe messing with your head?
I'm going to show you today the four root causes, and most importantly, what you can
do to try to reverse that.
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
Look!
Whether it's the way the muscle looks, or how it functions and what it's strength is,
muscle imbalances can definitely do a number on our workouts and sometimes, too, on our
psyche.
Right?
We're trying to figure out, What is it that is causing me to be so weak differently between
my right side and my left side?
For instance, if I'm doing a basic curling exercise, why can I curl more on my right
side versus the left side, or vice versa?
Why does it feel different on the right side versus the left side?
Why can't I make it contract the way that I do on the right side versus the left side?
Why does it get tired a lot quicker on the one side versus the other side?
These are all great questions, guys.
And as a matter of fact, they are very common, ok?
Even especially in the realm that I work in with Pro Athletes, these guys have developed
pretty significant imbalances because in some instances, these imbalances work in their
favor.
As you can imagine, a baseball player, you know, somebody that relies on rotational power,
it's obviously going to be asymmetrical, right versus left, depending upon what side that
guy uses primarily.
But, for us, in the gym who want to try to get an overall well-rounded physique, and
also even strength levels, imbalances are crushing us.
So, there are 4 areas that you have to look at.
First, Coordination and Proprioception.
With coordination and proprioception guys, what you're looking at is mostly back in that
area, where I said, why does it feel different?
Why can't I get the muscle to contract the way that I can on the right-hand side.
Again, bicep curl is a great example.
I'll carry it right through all 4 causes here.
If you're trying to curl a weight, if you don't have every component the same, it's
going to possibly feel different.
It's also going to mechanically put your joints at different angles so that you may not feel
the contraction the way that you do on the good side.
Let's call that the good side.
Why?
Because coordination is being able to move something through space.
And unfortunately, the biggest enemy here guys, and how you are quickly overcome this,
is by not using a barbell, if it is again, a barbell curl start getting used to using
those dumb bells.
Why?
Because you have to be able to independently create the curling motion, right and left
and get it to do the same.
Are you supinating the same amount in the forearm?
Do you have muscle restrictions that prevent that?
Maybe one forearm is tight and it prevents supination on the left side which prevents
you from getting that little extra squeeze here on the bicep.
So you want to address your Coordination and Proprioception by getting used to using dumb
bells and going through the full range of motion.
And making sure that you have adequate flexibility throughout your entire limb, if again, we're
talking about the arm and the curl.
So that you're not getting held back or inhibited in any way.
Next up here guys, Neurological.
With the Neurological causes here of muscle imbalance, we're really going after strength.
It's why you can curl maybe 60 pounds in one hand and 45 or 50 pounds in the other and
feel equally tough.
Here guys we have to start looking at what our muscle activation is.
What is the motor unit activation?
How well patterned are we between our mind and our muscle?
Because there can totally be differences between your right and left side.
Especially considering that most of us have a dominant side.
If you are right hand dominant, it's not uncommon to not have that neurological efficiency from
your brain to the muscle in the left side of your body, again in the left arm.
Because you don't use it as much.
So if you're looking at that and say how do we overcome this?
I think we have to sort of figure out a way to sort of activate the muscle fibers and
get them a little bit more alert to what we're going to do in the workouts.
And there's a technique I call, matter of fact I just discussed it in our NXT program,
is a Touch Up Set.
With a Touch Up Set you're going to intentionally go beyond what you normally work with.
If you're normally doing you sets to 10 to 12 reps max of 40 pound curls, then give me
a 55 pound curl.
Let me see you go above and beyond what you can.
You're only going to do 3 or 4 reps but that's ok.
Because you want to try to activate and alert the muscles to the loads that you're going
to possibly get to again, not in that workout but hopefully down the road.
And then come back to your working weight.
You'll find that it neurologically turns on the muscles, activates them to be a little
bit more efficient when you go back to your working weight.
Next up, Circulation problems.
Here guys again, a common occurrence.
You fatigue faster, right you're going to see this happen when you find that one side
constantly fatigues a little bit faster than the other.
Most often guys, probably due to circulation differences between sides.
How do you fix that?
You've got to start incorporating some higher rep sets into the work that you're doing.
If you find that one side constantly fatigues versus the other, then start doing some unilateral
again, dumb bell, high rep sets to that side to try to improve the circulation.
You know, studies will show that capillary density which is going to be bringing more
blood flow to that area, will improve if you train the area through higher reps.
So more oxygen deprivation, get those rep sets up to 50 or so.
You're going to see that you can improve the capillary density and by doing so help get
more blood flow there and extend the length of time that you can perform those sets.
Finally guys, number 4 here, Genetics.
Now you know that I'm not one to use genetics as an excuse, especially having come from
such a skinny past to be able to have added lean muscle into my adulthood.
Guys, genetics though will play a part in how your muscles look.
There's no doubt there are some people that have chests that sort of go inward.
Bony structures that actually go in ways that they're not normally seen.
That's not something that you can overcome.
Shorter limbs, longer limbs, longer muscle bellies, those are all things that are genetically
part of the makeup of what you look like.
But that being said it doesn't mean that if you strip off as much fat as you can by following
a healthy diet.
And if you train properly.
And if you don't train too long, again I'm going to keep hammering home that point.
If you traded in your workout length for intensity, you can maximize what you've got guys.
And again, to incorporating some of these techniques you can really easily improve these
areas.
So even genetics, you can overcome bad genetics guys, if you have the right training approach.
Hopefully you'll see muscle imbalances are not a curse that you're going to have to live
with forever.
Not if you approach it in the right way.
ATHLEANX is about approaching those things the right way guys.
So if you haven't already and you want to try to get lean athletic muscle that's also
aesthetically pleasing and looks great.
So that you can cover that aspect too, look great and dominate on the field at the same
time.
Guys, ATHLEANX again, is the program.
If you haven't already make sure you come on over to ATHLEANX.COM and grab our training
program.
I hope you found this little coverage here of the types of the muscle imbalances and
more importantly what you can do about them, helpful.
If you did, make sure you leave a comment below.
In the meantime we'll be back here in just a couple of days with another new workout
tip for you.
This time addressing the very biceps that we just covered here as examples in this video.
Until then guys, have a great couple days.