Muscle imbalance

Runningfast · 17 February 2019 at 7:46PM

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone can give me advice on how to fix a muscle mass imbalance?

I have worked over the last few months to fix the strength imbalance and now both legs are equally as strong.

Just trying to work out how I keep the strength or improve the strength in both legs but increase the mass more in one leg more than the other (until it catches up).

thanks

parking_question_chap · 17 February 2019 at 9:00PM

It depends why there is an imbalance. Was this due to injury and muscle degredation? or because you have favoured one leg over the other in any repect?

Runningfast · 17 February 2019 at 9:15PM

parking_question_chap wrote: »

It depends why there is an imbalance. Was this due to injury and muscle degredation? or because you have favoured one leg over the other in any repect?

Both of those reasons are valid especially for the imbalance I am also correcting in the back, shoulder and arms etc. I had an accident a few years ago that resulted in me not beingI able to fully use one side of my (upper) body for nearly 2 years due to injury, operations and rehabilitation etc. Due to the lack of physical activity other than walking my dominant leg has a lot more mass to it than the other leg. Last few months I have been working on building the strength up and now both legs are pretty equal in terms of strength but the mass around the quads, calf, hamstring is completely different. trying to correct that.

parking_question_chap · 17 February 2019 at 11:13PM

All I would say is if using weights you do exercises that work each side of your body independently. There isnt much point for example of doing barbell squats if one quad has suffered extreme atrophy due to nerve damage. You need to try and develop a training routine where you can isolate the weakest side and use an appropriate light weight and then use an appropriate heavier weight on the stronger side.

I have been through this myself, you might think that keeping training the stronger side will prevent them evening out. But this isnt the case, your weaker side will gradually catch up. If you use machines that normally work both legs together its quite easy on most of them to hook one leg out of the way as you train the other.

Manxman_in_exile · 9 March 2019 at 2:06PM

One .legged squats? If the weaker leg is a lot weaker you may need to just steady yourself against a wall - but don't put a lot of weight on it - use it only for balance. Start off with bodyweight and as you get stronger try holding a weight. But don't neglect the (currently) stronger leg too much.

Also try lunges on the weaker leg. Again you may need to be close to a wall just for balance

Muscle imbalance

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