At one point I became so obsessed with my own imbalances I began studying other people. I would look at the position of their shoulders, I would see if there spine was in a straight line, I measured the natural curvatures of the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical portions. I would watch how people walked, the position of the foot hitting the ground, where the toes pointed, how the knee flexed and extended, how stable the hips were... Want me to keep going so you can verify my utter insanity?? I could write for weeks on end about this and it will still never be perfect, but I've learned it can drastically be improved.
When I see someone in the gym, train someone, or watch someone train a client I see the same thing over and over and over. Let me relate this to you, have you ever tried and exercise or movement that just never 'felt' right?? I mean beyond improper form, I'm saying you watched multiple videos, had people show you the correct technique, maybe even paid a trainer to put you in the correct position and guide you step-by-step through the movement, yet it still just felt off to you?? Even in my early PT days I would get frustrated at clients when I would break the movement down step-by-step, show them, tell them, literally guide their bodies with my own two hands yet they still said "nope I don't feel it where I should". At first I thought they were being stubborn or not trying hard enough, but as I developed my own struggles I began to understand the much more complex issue.
What happens is our bodies are not immune to life's forces. You will have injuries, joints will be out of line, and your posture will be poor. I will skip all the acute instances of this, but basically if your body is not in an anatomically aligned position, no matter how hard you try your never gonna feel exercises the way they are meant to be felt. As a matter of fact, many times the exercises feel normal to you when in reality your body has become strong in an anatomically disadvantageous position.
People with injuries, poor posture, or alignment issues have experienced this feeling of not being balanced. What people think to is that these are the causes of the lack of balance, when in reality they are the symptoms. So when someone ices in injury, or they try to have better posture (shoulders back stuff), or try to align themselves by regularly attending a chiro, they are only temporarily relieving the SYMPTOM and not the CAUSE.
WHAT IN THE HECK IS THE CAUSE THEN????
....... MUSCLE IMBALANCE
That's right folks, more often than not all of those problems are caused by muscular imbalances developed through the ongoing physical traumas of life. What happens is certain muscles get stretched beyond there normal tensile length into a disadvantageous position. What also occurs is other muscles getting so tight that they chronically shorten. To make things worse both of these situations can lead to the muscle being either strong in a disadvantageous position, or weak and using other muscles, tendons, and ligaments to support the dysfunction. Let's take this a step further and remember the human body functions as a whole, so one imbalance leads to a compensation of another group, the body goes further out of line and requires even more compensations to remain somewhat in line which leads to more imbalances. If you thought I was done here just wait... Often these imbalances are unilateral so it may start at one side then transfer throughout larger joints to the other....
* I hope you can see why I was a little nuts before
My best piece of advice, and remember this may take months, weeks, even years to fix. I am still working everyday to become more balanced. It can be a grueling, tedious process but the rewards don't elicit a detailed explanation, you'll have a better life is the way I'll put it simply. The first thing you must do is assess yourself.
- What's tight?
- What feels weak?
- What feels 'off'?
- What side do you use more
- Are your shoulders/hips/knees aligned
- Doing your feet/knees/hips/shoulders/head stack evenly
- What areas are strong
- Check your ROM's
After that you need to begin addressing the causes. My advice would be work middle out. So start with core then work up, then core again then down. My reasoning for this is the core/lower back region connects the upper and lower regions of the body, if there is an imbalance in the core, trying to start with the legs or upper body won't solve the main imbalance.
Here are my top ways of correcting imbalances
- Short/Tight Muscles
- Light stretching longer than 1 minute
- Spend time in lengthened position (full eccentric and HOLD)
- Fascia release and trigger point
- Lengthened/Weak Muscles
- Foam roll and fascia release
- Spend time in the shortened position (full concentric contraction and HOLD)
- Postural corrections
- Other advice
- Yoga, Pilates: hold positions mindful of short/lengthened muscles, hold stretches maintaining best possible posture, don't force the movements
- Swim: relaxed movements, focus on overhand and breast stroke, control each movement and try to easy into full range of motion in hips and shoulders
If you keep a mind of it during the day, and focus on specific exercises which involve the imbalanced muscles, and try to swim or hit yoga once a week; you will see drastic differences in your performance. Like I said this isn't an easy process, but there are so many who will benefit greatly from better balance in there bodies.
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