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Other/Mixed Structural Balance — how important is it?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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Stephen B.

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The late Charles Poliquin wrote an article about the importance of structural balance and how to test it. It makes a lot of sense to me, but it means balancing a lot of different movements in training, and imbalance often goes hand in hand with many sports.


What do you guys think? What have your results been with correcting imbalances?
 
I have been dealing with back pain for years.
I started with S&S.
my stronger back helped.
my abs probably got stronger too.
my back pain reduced in frequency and intensity for many months.

after some flare-ups (I blame a bit of old man weather problems for part of it) I recently had a breakthrough that started me down the road of working regularly with the McGill Big 3.

I'll say that - it would seem there was more truth than I thought to the idea that: my back pain was - at least in part - due to a lack of counterbalancing strength from opposing portions of midsection muscle structures.

there's probably a big region of training ratios that don't matter in some muscle groups. but I happen to have recently experienced that direct training of the abs has seemed to offer some physiological balance to some kind of problem with the lower back on the left side.

that said - the more I work on my midsection - the easier my 40kg 1 hand swings get. I think my body absolutely did not obey my commands to swing the 40kg bell to shoulder height while my back was not going to be up to the task.
 
The late Charles Poliquin wrote an article about the importance of structural balance and how to test it. It makes a lot of sense to me, but it means balancing a lot of different movements in training, and imbalance often goes hand in hand with many sports.


What do you guys think? What have your results been with correcting imbalances?
There are ratios between some antagonist muscle groups that potentially predict or contribute to injury; the same is true when comparing left and right sides of the body. It is okay to focus on a movement and prioritize it for a while, but at some point that will likely lead to overuse or imbalance injuries. The challenge is there’s no good way to know how long it’s okay to do that before something happens.

On the flip side, it is not super difficult to maintain balance; we often overcomplicate it and then overwhelm ourselves physically/mentally/emotionally trying to achieve perfect balance. For example, warmup for a press/hinge workout with a few comfortable sets of pull/squat, then cooldown with loaded carries; boom, checked all the boxes but saved your recovery resources for your primary exercises. Do that for a while until you hit a reasonable goal, then swap the pieces around and focus on something else for a bit while maintaining balance via the warmup and cooldown, and keep flip-flopping in that manner until all your dreams are met.


Thanks,
Sam Goldner, DPT
 
What do you guys think? What have your results been with correcting imbalances?

Pretty good to the extent that I can assess it, pay attention to it, and with sample size n = 1.

Most clear cut example for me is pressing.

I've had multiple times where my press progressed after stalling by either addressing a L/R imbalance or, much more dramatically, doing a lot of upper back work.

I've also increased stalled squats and deadlifts by doing more core work.
 
I find doing unilateral work, either as part of my pre-training session mobility work or as part as my main session helps to clear up imbalances structurally. College and pro teams are really starting to grasp this as a way to have a stronger and healthier athlete. While training big lifts such as benches, cleans and squats, they are doing a lot of unilateral work using landmines, sandbags and plyometric work.
 
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