This week's topic is muscle imbalance, which refers to the strength and/or flexibility differences between the muscle groups that surround, protect and move your joints.
How Muscle Imbalance Comes About
Muscle imbalance is often brought about by joint misalignment, and it may make poor posture worse.
Conversely, muscle imbalance may also contribute to joint misalignment.
Either way, it is characterized by a combination of extraordinary amounts of tension or spasms, along with muscle weakness.
Imbalanced muscles that are tight are often strong enough to pull one or more joints out of alignment; imbalanced muscles that are weak may be easily overcome - another contributor to out-of-whack joints.
Muscles that Surround a Joint are Designed Like a Symphony
In a healthy state, all muscles that surround a joint work in harmony together, like a symphony.
When muscle imbalances are present, the weak muscles are positioned in a way that makes it difficult or impossible for them to contribute to joint integrity. The result is a disruption in the alignment and natural movement of the joint.
Left unchecked, the pattern perpetuates itself – tight muscles get tighter, leading to disengaged and weakened muscles on the other side of that same joint.
This process encourages even more tension in tight muscles and further disengagement in the weak ones. And it continues until you find a way to disrupt it.
Muscle imbalance often starts at just one or a few joints.
Then, as affected joints become dysfunctional, other areas are brought in to help you sit, stand, move without pain or without injuring yourself. Those newly drafted areas also become dysfunctional because, in this case, they are not designed for the work they are doing.
This is how muscle imbalance spreads throughout the body. The process continues until you address them with a movement program.
Imbalanced Auto Pilot Moves
By nature, we humans are creatures of habit.
In both childhood and adulthood, learning new moves starts with conscious effort: It requires requiring attention, focus and experimentation.
Once mastered, the task learned goes on auto-pilot, and you’ll likely perform it the same way you learned it, every time, without giving it a second thought.
If muscle imbalances are present during that initial learning time, then they will probably become part of the way you perform the task once it’s on autopilot.
Are You an Accident Waiting to Happen (Like I Was?)
So you do your familiar movements on auto-pilot over and over again, until one day — wham! That extra strong muscle has gotten so strong that it has completely overtaken the muscles on the other side of that same joint, and you pull something, injure something or simply end up with a terrible muscle spasm.
Picking up my cat was seemingly my back’s downfall.
Believe me, I know, because it’s happened to me.
One day years ago, I bent down to pick up my cat (as I would frequently do without incident) and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back – unable to get up off the floor.
Is Your Core Imbalanced? If So, Uh, Oh...
Patterns of muscle imbalance can develop anywhere in the body.
But let’s talk core and trunk for a minute. The core and trunk, which are different names for the same thing, are your body’s center.
For most people, the core and trunk muscles do the lion’s share of the body and posture support work.
When the core is balanced and well-aligned, injury risk and muscle pain diminish or even disappear.
On the other hand, imbalances in core muscles tend to turn people into “accidents waiting to happen.”
Again, I know, because that’s what I was the moment (and probably months or even years) before I tried to pick up my cat that day.
Because I couldn't get up, I spent the better part of the afternoon on the floor contemplating this condition.
Once I was finally able to extradite myself from the floor, I started in on my healing journey, which, I found out, was largely about developing balanced strength and flexibility in the muscles that serve the pelvis, hips, core, trunk and shoulders.
This balanced strength approached worked so well that it inspired me to teach others who also experienced pain and dysfunction.
Since then, I’ve helped many clients, students and readers turn this “accident waiting to happen” condition around, and to go on to live very active lives without further mishaps.
Your Body's Balance Point
The “accident waiting to happen” state – and one’s ability to resolve it – relies on the pelvis’s role as a balancing point for overall body posture.
The pelvis is located at the physical center of your body. As such, it's a key player when it comes to support for, and movement in, the structures located above and below.
As with every area of the body, muscles that run through and around the pelvis require harmonious degrees of strength and flexibility for smooth operation of all they affect.
This harmony keeps the pelvic position level and balanced, which helps maintain a comfortable fit between adjacent parts.
Muscle imbalance in the pelvis can translate to chronic misalignment in the joints of your low back, hips and/or your sacroiliac. It also affects how well these areas work together to keep you upright, and propel you as you walk, run or otherwise move your body.
This is why activating and developing your core is so key.
But if you, like most people, have accumulated years of poor posture and movement habits, you may have layers and layers of imbalances to work through.
Add to this the fact that muscle imbalances tend to spread throughout the body, the task of rebalancing may seem daunting, indeed.
Good News! Reversing Muscle Imbalance IS Possible
I have a bit of good news.
Muscle balance related pain and dysfunction are often mistaken for more serious structural damage. Generally, though, that’s not the case.
Muscle imbalance is largely fixable – if you are willing to work through it, that is.
Things you can do to balance out your muscle groups include stretching what is tight, strengthening what is weak, activating your deep core muscles, and learning how to develop body alignment and supported relaxation.
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This book will get you started rebalancing your muscles.
— Your body with thank you for it!
E-book form only. Available through Amazon and many other online book sellers.
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Anne Asher is certified by American Council on Exercise as a personal trainer and health coach, and certified at the 200 hour level as a yoga instructor. She has 25+ years experience using movement and body alignment techniques to help people feel better both physically and mentally.
For over a decade, Anne was also an award winning health journalist for a large website owned and operated by the New York Times Company. Her "beat" was spine and chronic pain management.
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