No negotiable for a lifting program to address imbalances?

[godislove614]

31F quite experienced in lifting heavy. I usually workout 4/5 times a week (4 it’s my sweet spot) of weight training and my focus is strength and hypertrophy as I struggle to build old muscle. I’m also currently in a slight calories surplus.

My problem is that I have an hip imbalances that reflects also in my shoulders. This impact my squat form and my bench one for example, limiting my ability to increase weight and quality of the movement.
I’ve booked with a physiotherapist once back from holidays but I’d like to structure my program to still pursuing my mass building goal while working on those imbalances.
Here are how I would modify my program:

• main compounds in 7-8 of RPE, 8-10 reps range. I’m afraid strength ght would bring me to injury until I don’t fix those imbalances
• tons of symmetric exercises to balance the two sides
• heard good things about ud Isometric holds to build symmetry but don’t know much about it..?
• same as above regarding using cables, is this a myth ?
• should I train more “functionally”?
• ofc I’ll do appropriate mobility following the physio advices

Any advice of what is the best way to cope with this is more than welcome!

 

[dawn16]

@godislove614 I'm in the same boat as you. 30M, noticing a lot more Hip imbalances recently, especially in the last year or so. Not super surprising given that my job requires me to sit, but I was surprised that all of my exercising didn't prevent it.

Anyway, I'm also looking for a physical therapist. But in the meantime, what I have started doing is a whole list of unilateral lower body exercises, some specifically targeting the hip muscles, and some targeting a host of muscles.

Just our of curiosity, do you do Bulgarian Split Squats? When I started doing these, this is when I really noticed the drastic hip instability on one side of my body. Ironically, doing these (with a little less weight and in a very controlled manner) is helping a lot.

If you haven't tried them, I'm curious to hear what you notice when you do.

For me, I noticed that when squatting on the left leg, I maintained perfect stability and had strong drive. When squatting with my right leg, my knee would bow inward and I had significantly less strength and almost no balance.

 

[tigggertat]

@dawn16 Same for me. My left side imbalances were made ragingly apparent when I started doing Bulgarian and regular split squats. It got better pretty quickly for me just by doing two sets on my left to the one set on my right. And the muscles that get sore on my left side are the deep stabilizing muscles, not the larger glutes! Had to go down in weight but the feeling of stability has improved so much just from Bulgarians.

 

[uzezi]

@godislove614 Do you mean unilateral when you say “symmetric” exercises ?
I have no idea what your current routine looks like to have opinion on wether it should have more functional work , whatever functional means to you

 

[godislove614]

@uzezi Yes I mean unilateral. Currently i run an upper- lower body routine, a couple of exercises for strength(4-6 reps range) at the beginning and then mostly hypertrophy

 

[dawn16]

@godislove614 Is your program normally using more than 7-8 RPE for your main lifts? Appropriate warm ups to loosen up stiff joints so that you can lift properly is often overlooked. If your right hip can't open properly in a squat it'll force you to shift right and use the right leg more.

I always incorporate SL and SA into every workout as well.

SL = bench squats, shrimp squats, touchdowns (not step ups too easy to cheat), calf raises, hip flexor raises, BSS

SA = OH presses, chest press, rows, upside down KB presses.

Don't focus on huge weight with these. Go slow. Check how unstable you are. Upside down KB can really highlight instability in the shoulder joint.

 

[godislove614]

@dawn16 That’s very useful thanks! So you’d say to performance those with low weight and progress only when the form is perfect?

 

[dawn16]

@godislove614 Exactly. Low weight with perfect form. For the single leg don't let your ankle wobble all over the place. Don't be falling sideways. You're looking for strong and stable.