The concept of muscles balance and correcting muscular imbalances is one of the hottest topics in both the fitness and S&C industry today. As well it should be…
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However, many coaches and trainers have different approaches when it comes to the assessment, correction and prevention of muscle balances. Many of these approaches require a multitude of complex postural and movement assessments as well as an encyclopedia of corrective exercises.
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Although many “hard cases” do require an in-depth knowledge of assessment and corrective protocols. Most cases can be handled in a much simpler, straight forward manner.
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The goal of this 3 part post series to is to provide you with first, an understanding of some lesser considered points on muscle imbalances and second, to give you the simplest and most powerful ways to alleviate current muscle imbalances and design and more comprehensive program that will promote muscle balance.
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Now, before we can properly deal with real muscle imbalances that lead to dysfunction, We must understand a few aspects of imbalances are not bad. In fact, are quite natural and part of how we as humans function.
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Muscle Balance is Misunderstood
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Before I get into a few specific training concepts in a later post in this series, I wanted clarify a myth about muscle balance in general.
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Many professionals have a misunderstanding that each, opposing muscle should have equal strength. In other words, some folks think the flexors of joint A, should posses the same strength as the extenders of Joint A.
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This is simply FALSE!
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To understand why this belief is just plain false and simply unrealistic, we can look at the flexors and extendors of the ankle joint.
I won’t beat around the bush on this one. There is no way that the much smaller muscles on the front of the shin area can possibly create as much force during ankle doris-flexion as the muscle of the calf that create ankle plantar-flexion.
The funny thing is that we all already know this is impossible because we would never ask an athlete use the same amount of weight while doing an ankle dorsi-flexion exercise like this…
Over an ankle planter-flexion (calf raise) exercise like this…
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So why then are we trying to make our flexors an extendors equally strong when we already know its no possible nor remotely realistic?
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With this above example in mind, its easy to see why the human body keeps functional balance by maintaining certain strength imbalances.
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Now, heres the real important question. What do you think will happen to optimal function when you attempt to balance a necessary imbalance like the one at the ankle complex?
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The answer is simple. You get less than optimal function and increased risk of injury!
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Final Thoughts
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This goes to show something that all us coaches and fitness professionals need to realize. It shows us that no matter how much we read and educate ourselves, we will never be smarter than the human body.
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It also goes to show that just because something seems to make scientific sense doesn’t mean it makes common sense. And, if it doesn’t make both scientific and common sense, it usually means it’s nonsense!
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Next time…
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If you liked what you learned in this post, I’ve got plenty more coming at you on the next time around. This is just part 1 or a 3 part series so stay tuned and don’t forget to comment!
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