The unilateral training and muscle imbalances

Sometimes we see a competitor on stage whose arm may be a bit smaller than the other; it is also common to see some different size differences in their quadriceps, which can occur due to injury, neurological damage or because genetics made them have more great tips on one of its members, but usually all have one leg or a dominant arm, which is stronger than the other.

Although there is no consensus in the literature, preferred strength imbalances between members and not - preferred less than 10% have been considered "normal." All athletes should be concerned by muscle imbalances because asymmetries of the lower limbs on all have been linked to increased risk of injury in sports. In the case of athletes or people who want to compete, a way to avoid problems is to develop systematic evaluations isokinetic on a frequent basis to prevent injury or balance the body composition, in addition to observing how it relates to the unilateral training and muscle imbalances individually.

Unilateral workouts like squats on one leg or bench press with one arm are rarely seen in most gyms; this time our researchers examined a study that evaluated the responses of muscle and body strength when stimulated the dominant and non-dominant limbs.

In the study, 12 healthy and physically active men, who completed a period of four weeks of control, followed by a training program isokinetic strength of 12 weeks, with two workouts per week, including 3-5 sets of 10 crunches were recruited eccentric maximum for each limb. The researchers measured muscle size and strength throughout the entire study developing a meticulous observation variables obtained. Here is a complete guide to  Unilateral Training.

At the end of the survey, the non-dominant leg had strength deficits compared to the dominant and this asymmetry was not attributed to the amount of muscle mass; in fact, the muscles of the nondominant responded better, with increases in greater strength than the dominant member, but differences in muscle size were not different between the two members.

This suggests that muscle hypertrophy was not associated with increased strength gain in the nondominant limb; here one of the conclusions is that the biggest gain force in the nondominant can be attributed to increased neural adaptations in conditions of disequilibrium, indicating that the increase in resistance is not associated with muscle hypertrophy for this particular case, although it is important to link the unilateral training and muscle imbalances as an inversely proportional relationship in general terms.