Muscular 
Symmetry is the hallmark of an aesthetic physique. A more subtle, yet no less important, aspect to muscular balance is your inner muscular symmetry. This consists of developing appropriate strength and flexibility between opposing muscle groups not only for the sake of appearance but for musculoskeletal health as well!
Muscles in the body tend to work in pairs that have opposite functions (called Functional Antagonists). For example the biceps on the front of the arm bends your elbow while the triceps on the back of the arm straightens the elbow.
As you can imagine if the biceps was in a chronically tight position you would have a situation where your arms would favor a flexed position as its “normal” resting state. This would also put your triceps in a chronically stretched position. I’m sure we’ve all seen guys in the gym who spend 90 % of their arm workouts doing curls and walk around with their arms bent 24-7!
The most problematic imbalances involve muscles that affect posture. These are the muscles in the Lumbo-Pelvic region (area of the lumbar spine and pelvis) as well as the muscles in the region of the shoulder-shoulder girdle. Since the body functions as an integrated structure, these types of postural imbalances impact the body as a whole.
There are two specific syndromes caused by muscle imbalances that are very common:
Upper Cross Syndrome
This syndrome is caused when the muscles in front of the shoulders, chest, lats, and neck become overly tight, causing the muscles between the shoulder blades to become overly stretched. This contributes to a rounding of the shoulders which in turn tends to place the head in a forward extended position.
To help correct this one typically will focus on stretching the tight muscles in the front while strengthening the muscles in the back of the body. I recommend doing a variety of rowing and rear delt fly variations (both bilateral and unilateral) with an extra emphasis on initiating the movement with scapula retraction (i.e. squeezing the shoulder blades towards the spine) to engage the rhomboids/mid traps.
Lower Cross Syndrome
This syndrome is created when muscles that act on the front of the pelvis are overly tight causing the top of the pelvis to tilt forwards. This tends to cause an excessive increase in the curvature of the lower back. This will typically create a lot of strain on the lower back, causing discomfort while also placing it at increased risk for injury (especially during exercises like heavy squats, lunges or even overhead pressing exercises).
Another side effect of this tightness in the front of the hip is that it tends to cause weakness in the Glutes. Noted Author and Spinal Bio-mechanist Stuart McGill coined this weakness as “gluteal amnesia”. This is caused because the hip flexors are in a chronically contracted position which creates reciprocal inhibition of the glutes. The glutes in essence are getting a neurological signal to “shut down”.
This creates a snowball effect where the hamstrings (the secondary hip extensors) try to take over the job of the much more powerful gluteals. Since these muscles aren’t designed to take on the workload of the glutes they often become overworked and therefore injured. The back extensor muscles may also try to get in the act of assisting with hip extension placing additional stress on the lower back.
Along with the injury risk inherent in this situation is the significant decrease in power during any type of forward locomotion.
To help correct this syndrome the muscles in the front of the hip need to be lengthened via various flexibility techniques while the posterior muscles of the pelvis and hips need to be strengthened. The abdominals, which help reverse the anterior tilt, need to be strengthened as well.
Some excellent glute specific exercises include glute bridge variations, mini-band lateral walks (especially good for gluteus medius and minimus), Dirty Dogs (external hip rotation from a quadruped position), and Donkey kicks. These are excellent to do after stretching to help “activate” the glutes prior to doing other lower body exercises.
In general here are some things that might contribute to these imbalances:
· Repetitive postures or movements such as extended periods of sitting.
· Too much reliance on machine based training which disrupts proper muscle synergies. Machines also tend to eliminate the need for the body to stabilize itself in the way it was designed in order to function optimally.
· Poorly balanced exercise selection such as too much emphasis placed on “pushing” (i.e. the “Mirror Muscles”) rather than “pulling” movements.
· Faulty exercise technique (i.e. “Faulty biomechanics) which leads to muscle compensation patterns which are very inefficient and can lead to overuse injuries.
Scott Fishkind is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer/NESTA Certified IMPACT instructor near Nashville TN
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