Peter Roberts's video: What to do if your Right side is Stronger than your Left in any Exercise

How do you strengthen your weaker side on single side or left/right exercises? What do you do if your left arm is weaker than your right? Or if one leg is weaker than the other? Step 1: Match the weight and reps lifted to what your weaker side is able to do. In other words, just because your right arm is stronger, don’t do more reps with it until both sides are within a couple of reps of each other. Step 2: When one side is being suborn and isn’t improving as expected, do more total sets on the weaker side. Try this: for one ‘set’, do reps on the weaker side, then do reps on the stronger side, then go back to the weaker side. Then rest and repeat for another set. Step 3: Train the target muscle groups 2-4x per week. Smaller, weaker muscles can be trained more often (i.e. rotator cuff exercises can be done daily) while bigger stronger muscles take longer to recover between sessions and can be effectively training 2-3x/week. When in doubt, ask someone knowledgeable for advice. Step 4: Be patient. Long standing imbalances won’t work themselves out overnight. It may take several months of consistent training to achieve parity between left and right. WHY SHOULD I CARE? First off, know that some difference between sides is normal and OK. For most people we like to keep the discrepancy to about 5%. In some unique sports you might have a bigger discrepancy - for example and Right-arm only arm-wrestler, and throwing athlete like a shot putter, and so on. These cases are rare so let’s focus on the majority. Second, why do we care if one side is stronger than the other? Even strength allows for better symmetry and balance in the body. Allowing weak-spots to fester will generally lead to hole in performance and sometimes injury or altered mechanics over time. Let’s suppose that your left leg is 15% stronger than the right. Chances are that you’ll shift your weight toward the left side during heavy squats. This in turn leads to subtle compensations upstream that can you take you out of position (rotating your pelvis) and put undue stress on one side.