Do you also focus on a certain muscle group in the gym? Watch out! This training method can easily cause the problem of muscle imbalance. However, the way of human body's exercise is mutual, and it is necessary to coordinate the operation of opposing muscles to produce normal exercise efficiency, that is to say, the corresponding muscle length and strength must be balanced to exercise its functionality correctly and effectively, which is why muscle imbalance will cause sports injuries and physical appearance problems. This article will tell you the seriousness of this matter according to the type and influence of muscle imbalance.

Are you a person who only practices two heads but not three? Watch out! This training method can easily cause the problem of muscle imbalance. Two kinds of muscle imbalance 1. Body muscle imbalance:

The muscles on both sides of the body should be basically symmetrical, with the same size and strength. When the strength and length of the other side of the body or the corresponding muscle group are larger or smaller, stronger or weaker than that of the other side, your muscles will be in an unbalanced state.

2. Joint muscle imbalance:

Every muscle around our joints will work together with opposite forces to center the bones of the joints to achieve the best exercise efficiency. If one of these muscles is stronger or weaker, tighter or looser than normal muscles, it will not only cause muscle imbalance, but also limit joint movement.

The common causes of muscle imbalance are basically training action planning and daily bad posture! Causes of imbalance

Muscle imbalance is usually caused by the following reasons:

1. Born

2. Keep a fixed posture for a long time

3. Bad posture

4. Uneven distribution of exercise plans

5. Incorrect way of exercise

In order to function, joints must have two partners, namely "pull" and "push". In daily life, "pull" seems to be just a simple verb, but it includes various actions such as pulling the front to yourself, pulling from top to bottom or pulling from bottom to top. These movements can be explained not only by "pulling" but also by "rowing". Another action that is often used in daily life is "pushing". Generally speaking, the action of pushing can be divided into two types: the way of pushing with all one's strength; For example, when you push by hand in a sumo match, you will use the muscles of your whole body, including the muscles of your hips, the muscles of the front and rear thighs, the core muscles, the arms and the chest muscles, and work together with the muscles around your big joints to stabilize your body and transmit strength.

These two partners can also be interpreted in another way. In all joint motion modes, there are two opposite muscles, namely "active muscle" and "antagonistic muscle". When the active muscle contracts, the assembled anti-muscle will relax. On the contrary, when the active muscle relaxes, the reverse muscle contracts. It is precisely because of the interaction between these two muscles that the human body can produce such diverse movements. For example, when you want to drink water from a bottle with your hands, you will bend (contract) the biceps brachii to push the bottle into your mouth, and then the triceps brachii will relax, making the whole movement smooth and smooth; However, if your biceps or triceps are over-developed, this will lead to excessive muscle tension, which will limit the range of motion and cause some injuries.

Generally speaking, the influence of muscle imbalance is beneficial to the operation of the body. However, if you overtraining or strengthening a certain muscle group while ignoring the muscle strength of the corresponding muscle group, it will easily lead to muscle imbalance, resulting in poor range of motion, muscle pain, unbalanced appearance and other problems. At the same time, it will also cause problems among joints, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, bones and muscles due to muscle imbalance, further increasing the risk factors during exercise.

Solve the muscle imbalance. Everything or action in our body is related, so anything that affects one part will indirectly affect the other. And we humans have the problem of using one side, which is very easy to cause the imbalance and development of muscle strength on one side. If you need to balance the muscle strength of your body, then training one side (one side) may be a topic you need to know.

Usually, the most commonly used unilateral training action in the gym is dumbbell biceps bending, which is a familiar training method, but we often forget that this training can also be applied to any muscle group such as chest, legs and back for isolated training. There are many unilateral movements, such as one-arm dumbbell bench press or one-leg squat. , can strengthen the training of our whole body muscles and core. Please remember the following four training suggestions:

1. Strengthen the weak side

Most of us are accustomed to the fact that one side is stronger and the other side is weaker. So when you use barbells for training, it is easy to absorb the weaker side through the stronger side. This is because the barbell will shift its weight during lifting or pushing, so we can avoid this situation through dumbbell training. However, when the two arms move at the same time, they still have a synergistic effect. In this case, it is better. At this time, when you only use unilateral weight training, you may find that there is a considerable difference in strength and stability between the left and right sides, which means that unilateral training will force the body to strengthen muscle strength without any muscle assistance on both sides, gradually narrowing the bilateral differences and making the muscle strength on both sides more symmetrical.

2. Effectively break through the training bottleneck.

If your training state has hit a wall or plateau, you can try unilateral training. For example, doing one-sided shoulder push will be more difficult than our two-handed shoulder push, but it is also an effective way to break through the training bottleneck. This is because when you use unilateral training to strengthen your weak muscles, you will find that your weight and strength can be greatly improved when you resume normal bilateral training.

There are four suggestions to solve the muscle imbalance and get a better balance. 3. Enhance the core competitiveness of institutions

Many people will inevitably ask "unilateral" training and core? You can try to push unilaterally with a dumbbell. At this time, you will find it necessary to use the core muscles to stabilize your body so as not to lose your balance. In other words, you can also use unilateral training to increase the core muscles of your body. In addition, this training method can also make our body coordination and balance ability require higher training movements.

Step 4 focus more

Generally speaking, when using unilateral training, the body cannot adapt to this training mode quickly. Therefore, when we do this kind of training action, we must pay more attention to the stability and attention of the body. At the same time, we can feel the contraction and slowing down of muscles, which will help you focus more on the target muscle group in your training actions. Therefore, we can improve muscle participation through unilateral training mode.

Reference//Bodybuilding, Journal of Applied Physiology

Editor//David