Muscle Imbalances

One of the biggest and most important jobs of the personal trainer/strength coach is to assist their clients in identifying muscle imbalances. Now in some cases the imbalances are so great that pain is normal for their gait and general movement outside of training. This is one of those indicators that the musculoskeletal system is severely imbalanced. The length tension dynamics are so at odds with each other that the body is sending the brain a signal that the system is in distress!

If we understand that training is stressful and the success of training depends on the ability of the body to recover well enough to repeat certain training stressors then eventually what we learn is that we can accumulate too much of a good thing in this process. Now with that said it's really easy to slip into some of these behaviors because often times it's easy to find ourselves growing in affinity towards a specific movement or exercise. This often happens because the body is very capable in this domain and because of this the body naturally adapts pretty easily to higher and higher levels of stress. Some of this may be due to lever length and some of this may be due to previous sporting history or just plain old genetic predisposition. The dynamics of this equation however are that the weaknesses in this pattern of movement or exercise are fewer than others. So load accumulation is an easier process instead of a more difficult one.

In the opposite case if we have a movement or exercise that is challenging to improve upon that is actually where the most growth potential is. How do you make a movement/exercise improve? You train the weakest portions of it to become stronger therefore removing the muscle imbalance and allowing the brain to deliver greater amounts of neural drive to the body. It's very common to experience athletes struggling with a plateau until they learn about the specific weaknesses that are holding them back. As soon as the body has even a modest amount of symmetry then what occurs is the system allows the athlete to break that plateau by a significant margin.

However, if this does not take place and specific training is the only way forward then eventually there is a perpetual stall in progression. You can only squat, lunge, bench press, do more pull ups with more weight for so long before the limitations are the muscle imbalances themselves. Now when this occurs there is often some neurological inhibition to the weaker muscles. It's very common to have a triceps weakness or posterior shoulder weakness in a bench press or overhead press as well as incredibly stiff pecs/front deltoids. This is normal and predictable. When individuals remedy this dynamic then not only does the exercise improve but since the stress of training that movement is more equitably distributed what occurs is less specifically stiff areas. If you consider that the whole body absorbs the stress of every exercise then it becomes easier to understand that every muscle in the entire body can contribute meaningfully to the lifting of the barbell/dumbbell.

If you don't think your feet contribute to the bench press feel free to stick them up in the air next time you do a 1RM and let me know how it goes.

If you don't think the hands or fingers contribute to the back squat feel free to let go of the bar and squat a 1RM without them wrapped around it.

I could go on and on but I think we get the point here. Every little part matters. This begins the bigger discussion of what is the most important/weakest links that should be addressed. First things first, the most central imbalances need to be handled initially. The muscles closest to the spine are going to have the biggest global impact on all the exercises and lifts. If you are doing finger curls to fix your clean and jerk I think you are going to spend a long time fixing distal problems that could have a quicker more centralized resolution. Simply put the more central the fix the more stable the middle section of the body is and the fewer distal instabilities will be generated.

Consider the trunk and roots of a tree here. If the trunk of the tree is not capable of creating a stable dynamic between the roots and the branches then the tree will grow no fruit and likely will not last very long. If the client or athlete has limitations in their trunk they will not be able to absorb the loading of the bar or other external loading very equitably. Instead the training stressors will be directed wherever the brain considers the body to be most capable of absorbing stress. This pattern over time and with enough repetition creates greater and greater distributions of stress in similar areas. Here are some normal imbalances that are seen and have been seen throughout time in training populations.

Weaker Hamstrings/Stronger Quads

Weaker Hamstrings/Stronger Calves

Weaker Hamstrings/Stronger Lumbar Erectors

Weaker Glutes/Stronger Quads

Weaker Glutes/Stronger Calves

Weaker Glutes/Stronger Lumbar Erectors

Weaker Rhomboids/Stronger Pecs

Weaker Lower and Mid Traps/Stronger Upper Traps

Weaker Lats/Stronger Pecs

Weaker Abdominal and Oblique Muscles/Stronger Lumbar Erectors

If you are experiencing knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain with your training the reality is that you likely have a muscular imbalance that is so severe that your body is sending a signal to your brain about it. You likely also have limitations with specific ranges of motion due to the severity of the muscle imbalance as well. If you consider the reality that your brain is constantly organizing the length tension relationships of the tendons, ligaments, muscles, bones and joint systems then you can fix these problems by giving the brain other options than just the one you naturally possess. You have to build this new dynamic though by doing exercises that assist in creating greater muscle balance as opposed to just doing the exercises that you like to do.

Over the long course of time how the musculoskeletal system is managed with training stress becomes critical to its developmental output. Not only is your movement critical to this endeavor but your force/velocity with movement is going to be subject to these dynamics as well. If you have had a muscle imbalance in the hip/leg as a runner for a long time you most likely have never been able to run at full capacity. You have only been able to run at the level of your limitations. If you are a lifter and you have a muscle imbalance in your torso you likely are only able to lift to the level that the imbalance allows you to. So when it's time to train consider the reality that you are training a very complex system that is capable of amazing capacity. Without scrutiny, intention and consideration for these systemic implications though the challenges will be great for you to overcome them.