Imbalanced to Get Balanced

One of the components of any well written strength program should be balance. I'm not talking about ridiculous looking stand on a Bosu Ball balance. I'm talking about balance between movement patterns. For instance is there as much horizontal pulling work as there is horizontal pushing work within your program? Is there as much hip dominant work as their is quad dominant work? Is there single leg work in order to balance out left to right asymmetries?

Now this is taking into consideration the individual this program is written for is balanced to begin with. They have no left to right asymmetries. They hold pretty close to perfect posture. Their shoulders are in line with their ears. They have no existing or pre-existing injuries. Their balanced strength program is going to match up pretty good with their own physical balance. Wouldn't that be nice? But this type of individual rarely exists. In fact, this type of individual may be extinct.

What I'm usually seeing are imbalanced individuals. I'm not assessing their psychological state, just their physical state. Their posture may be way out of alignment. They may have a big strength discrepancy between the right and left sides. They may have poor glute function or have the look that they were born without any glutes at all. So a balanced program is not going to work for this type of individual, which again happens to be the majority of us. A balanced program for an imbalanced individual leads to...imbalance.

So what we should be focusing on is more imbalance in your training program. Exercises or set and rep schemes that are going to try to bring you back to neutral. Imbalanced in a good way. For instance:

• More horizontal pulling volume than pressing volume for those with shoulder or postural issues. Could be 1-2 more pulling exercises, could be a higher number of sets, or could be more reps per set. May be even eliminate all pressing work for awhile.
• More shoulder external rotation work than shoulder internal rotation. Exercises such as bench press or pull ups involve internal rotation of the humerus so you want to add in more exercises that address external rotation of the humerus. These exercises could be rowing variations, side lying or cable external rotation exercises, band pull aparts or prone T-raises.
• More hip dominant work than quad dominant work. More sets and reps of deadlifts, glute/ham raises and Valslide leg curls than sets of squats.
• More core stability work than trunk flexion work. Actually, lets just forget about trunk flexion work all together. That means no more mindless 100 rep sets of crunches.
• More single limb work in your program. I am not just referring to lower body exercises such as split squats or single leg squats, but also referring to upper body single limb work. Some examples are: dumbbell rows, single arm dumbbell presses or single arm cable rows.

It basically comes down to doing more of what you probably were not doing and less of what you were. Create the imbalance to get balanced.