with HAC Personal Trainer Eric Rose
Almost everyone has some sort of muscular imbalance – when one muscle or muscle group is stronger than its counterpart on the opposite side of the body. Most of the time, it is due to people favoring their dominant side for everything, which makes that side a little stronger, but there are plenty of other explanations for why someone may have one side significantly stronger than its opposite. Whether you’re a mom who constantly carries her newborn baby with her left arm or you’re three months into a knee replacement and seeing a lot of muscular atrophy during recovery, the explanations are endless.
Ideally, we would like to be as symmetrical as possible, so taking care of those muscular imbalances before they become too extreme is very important. The most effective way to do this is to adjust your workouts to include more unilateral movements – exercises that work just one side of the body at a time. When performing bilateral exercises, your stronger side is likely overcompensating without you even knowing it. To fix this, you will need to substitute most of those trusty machines and barbells for cable towers and dumbbells. Start each exercise with your weaker side, and perform the same number of reps on your strong side as you did with your weak side, even if it feels like you have way more in the tank. Your stronger side might be bored for a little bit, but over time you will see your weak side start to catch up and narrow the gap of your muscular imbalance. Here are five exercises you can incorporate into your workouts to help even you out:
1.) Dumbbell Concentration Curl
Find an adjustable bench and set it one or two notches down from straight up. Stand behind the raised part of the bench (depending on your height, you may need to slightly adjust the bench position). (A) Starting with your weaker bicep, rest your arm over top of the bench with a dumbbell in hand. (B) Curl the dumbbell up and come almost all the way back down, stopping right before your hand reaches the bench. Match the number of reps you were able to perform on your weak side with your strong side.
2.) Single-Arm Tricep Cable Pull-down
(A) Set your cable to a position above your head (no attachment needed). Grab the cable.
(B) Pull straight down, keeping your elbow tucked to the side and your upper arm completely stable throughout the exercise. Fully extend at the bottom and bring the cable back up all the way while keeping your elbow in the same place.
3.) Single Arm Cable Row
Adjust the cable tower so it lines up with your chest when kneeling on one knee. Add a regular handle attachment. Slide yourself back so that you can get a full range of motion during the exercise. (A) Grab the handle with a vertical grip, brace your core, and straighten your back to maintain stability. (B) Pull the handle back towards you, pulling your elbow in close to your side as you row. Bring the handle all the way back to the tower without letting the weight stack touch.
4.) Single-Leg Leg Extension
(A) Adjust the leg extension to your body proportions. (B) For this workout, you will push up with one leg at a time rather than both. Start with your weaker side and match the reps.
5.) Dumbbell Shoulder Press
(A) Set your bench to a 60°-75° angle, or one or two notches down from straight up. Rest your dumbbells on your knees, then kick them up one at a time to get them to your base position in line with your eyes above either shoulder. (B) Fully extend your arms up toward the ceiling, then bring the dumbbells back to eye level at the bottom of the rep. You don’t need to go too far down on these! End your set once your weaker shoulder can no longer do any more reps.
Note: Though the dumbbell shoulder press works both arms at the same time, it is still considered a unilateral exercise because each arm works independently. Barbell shoulder presses are considered a bilateral exercise.
