There’s nothing more frustrating than putting in your time and training hard in the gym only to end up with muscle imbalances.

Muscle imbalance is a dynamic problem that can be caused by many factors like strength, physique, flexibility, and mobility, among others.

Research shows that the primary cause of muscle imbalance is when a person focuses on certain muscles or one side of the body while forgetting or giving less attention to the other.

The side that gets favored is usually stronger than the other. It is popular to favor your active side, which means that right-handed people tend to favor the right side and vice versa.

This post explores:

• how to determine if you have a muscle balance and what caused it
• steps you need to correct muscle imbalance

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Identifying the cause of muscle imbalance

There could be many causes of muscle imbalance. However, some of the most common are:

• You are left-handed and used to doing more work with that side.
• It could be a long-term injury on one part of your body

If you’re able to catch the cause, you can carry out corrective measures. If you look for signs of pain or weakness on a certain part of your body, it can indicate imbalance.

Work on Mobility

The mobility of the body is the first corrective action to take. Exercises that target mobility like running, treadmill, cycling and others tend to create a balance between muscles automatically. Including these exercises in your daily workout routines in a moderate way can help correct imbalance.

If you increase your mobility, you also increase your strength, thus, improving the weak areas.

Focus on the Weak Areas

Athletes are successful because they are keen to notice signs of imbalance and work to correct them. If you work out often and put more focus on these areas and muscles, they will soon catch up with the others. All bodyweight workouts like pushups, squats, and planks can be used to improve.

Using weights and other complicated gym equipment isn’t advised while you’re working on correcting muscle imbalance. The recommendation is to use your bodyweight exercises to avoid straining any part.

Therefore, use more reps on your weaker side while you expose your stronger side to just a few workouts. If possible, you can use enhancement supplements. They will enhance your weaker side when used as recommended.

Equalize the Workouts Gradually

After focusing on the weak side of your body with the appropriate exercise, you need to start equalizing them gradually to avoid another problem.

Working the weak side too much and neglecting the stronger side can lead to the reverse of the situation which is another imbalance situation.

If you have been tracking well, you will know when the weak side has caught up with the other side so that you can start to focus on them in an equal way.

Work Out More

Increasing the amount of bodyweight workouts you do is another excellent option you have to improve body imbalance. However, this should be combined with focusing on the weak areas to avoid further imbalance.

After you have correct the imbalance, you can increase the volume of workouts for both sides to continue with your fitness goals. You may have a milestone to recover if you are on a fitness cycle and thus the need to work extra hard.

Take caution and retain your tactic of creating a perfect balance to exercise all of the muscles equally.

Be Consistent

After coming up with a good plan of bodyweight workouts, being consistent is the next thing that will save you. Though it may take some time to test and come up with the best routine for bodyweight exercises, the final results will be visible when consistency is a key factor.

Track Progress

Weighing and measuring the body provides important data to know whether you are moving forward or are still stuck in one position. It is also the basis for making decisions. Some people involve fitness consultants to know the best way forward after tracking their progress.

Conclusion

Muscle imbalances can drag you backward or even cause a bigger problem for your fitness. That is why it is important to recover as soon as you can. 

What are some of your favorite bodyweight exercises? Do let us know in the comments below.