Recently I read somewhere that my knee pain could be caused by an imbalance in my muscles. It was suggested that I exercise my hamstrings more and lay off the quads for a bit. Well it worked like a charm. Does anyone know if there is a way to determine balance for other parts of the body? For instance if I am able to bench say 220 max then I should be able to do X amount of weight or percentage of weight on a shoulder exercise or a back exercise. This making any sense?
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Muscle Balance?
- Thread starter Carbmagnet
- Start date
Recently I read somewhere that my knee pain could be caused by an imbalance in my muscles. It was suggested that I exercise my hamstrings more and lay off the quads for a bit. Well it worked like a charm. Does anyone know if there is a way to determine balance for other parts of the body? For instance if I am able to bench say 220 max then I should be able to do X amount of weight or percentage of weight on a shoulder exercise or a back exercise. This making any sense?
Yes this makes total sense.
A great example I found a while ago described bench pressing and doing pull ups. It said if you can bench press your body weight say 15 times but could only do 8 pull ups, you were a prime candidate for shoulder injury due to the discrepancy/imbalance between your 2 major push/pull movements.
Your example about hams vs quads is very common. Our quads get so much more volume of work because of improper squatting and lunging. When doing these exercises you need to go parallel in order to get your hams maximally involved in the movement. Partial squats emphasize quads and little to no hams.
You should do bent rows with the same weight and reps you bench press, and, of course, you should be able to squat more than you can bench press (for all you chicken legged bench press and curl only people, you know who you are). Obviously you should be able to deadlift more than you can squat to maintain the quad/rear chain balance as the OP originally noted.
I would also recommend a balanced schedule of overhead pressing and pull ups at a similar rep and set schedule as your bench press/bent rows. In fact you would be better off performing more overhead presses and less or even no bench presses. Many world class olympic lifters never do bench presses and get along just fine.
I would also recommend a balanced schedule of overhead pressing and pull ups at a similar rep and set schedule as your bench press/bent rows. In fact you would be better off performing more overhead presses and less or even no bench presses. Many world class olympic lifters never do bench presses and get along just fine.
Awesome thanks so much!
A great example I found a while ago described bench pressing and doing pull ups. It said if you can bench press your body weight say 15 times but could only do 8 pull ups, you were a prime candidate for shoulder injury due to the discrepancy/imbalance between your 2 major push/pull movements.
I'm not a fan of this example, no offense. It's not that you can do more reps with one exercise over the other.
I believe you what are missing from this picture is that most people only focus on these two motions as their primary upper body compound exercises. And the targets for these two muscles are the pecs (bench press) and lats (pull-up or downs). One of the secondary motion for these muscles is internal rotation.
Many people leave out the external rotator muscles, and this is what causes the imbalance and poor shoulder stability
I'm not a fan of this example, no offense. It's not that you can do more reps with one exercise over the other.
I believe you what are missing from this picture is that most people only focus on these two motions as their primary upper body compound exercises. And the targets for these two muscles are the pecs (bench press) and lats (pull-up or downs). One of the secondary motion for these muscles is internal rotation.
Many people leave out the external rotator muscles, and this is what causes the imbalance and poor shoulder stability
Good points! It is very hard to find exercises to compare to find a strength ratio. In this case a knee flexion to knee extension ratio could be used.. but you'd have to use the same machines and I'm betting that for many antagonists there doesn't have to be a 1:1 ratio for it to be considered healthy and normal. Take shoulder flexion and extension for example.. I bet you'd do way more with extension, but that doesn't mean that you're shoulder flexion muscles are too weak compared to your extension muscles and place you at greater risk of injury.
I wonder if there is a good source one can refer to for healthy ratios between different antagonist movements.
Recently I read somewhere that my knee pain could be caused by an imbalance in my muscles. It was suggested that I exercise my hamstrings more and lay off the quads for a bit. Well it worked like a charm. Does anyone know if there is a way to determine balance for other parts of the body? For instance if I am able to bench say 220 max then I should be able to do X amount of weight or percentage of weight on a shoulder exercise or a back exercise. This making any sense?
A lot of personal trainers, particularly those with corrective exercise certifications, can assist you by observing you through the a series of assessments, and normally they'll offer these for free.
In the event that you want nothing to do with a personal trainer, you should do a search for both "overhead squat assessment" and "single leg squat assessment," and then go to NASM's website and get their results analysis sheets on their "tools" page, then have a friend (or in a mirror) watch your movements.
As Karky alluded to, muscle balance doesn't generally revolve directly around a protagonist and antogonist being able to handle weight on a 1:1 ratio. The two assessments I listed instead are rooted in proper biomechanical function.
Still, your best bet would be to have a certified professional perform the assessments so that you aren't guarding against how you should move vice how you actually move.
I'm not a fan of this example, no offense. It's not that you can do more reps with one exercise over the other.
I believe you what are missing from this picture is that most people only focus on these two motions as their primary upper body compound exercises. And the targets for these two muscles are the pecs (bench press) and lats (pull-up or downs). One of the secondary motion for these muscles is internal rotation.
Many people leave out the external rotator muscles, and this is what causes the imbalance and poor shoulder stability
No offense taken.You are absolutely right when it comes to imbalances between internal and external rotators. I was paraphrasing results of a study done describing the differences in strength from those 2 exercises exclusively.
Here's the abstract:
The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Article: pp. 594–598 | Abstract
Volume 18, Issue 3 (August 2004)
An Analysis of the Ratio and Relationship Between Upper Body Pressing and Pulling Strength
Daniel G. Baker1, 2 and Robert U. Newton1
1. School of Biomedical and Sport Science, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia,
Baker, D.G., and R.U. Newton. An analysis of the ratio and relationship between upper body pressing and pulling strength. J. Strength Cond. Res. 18(3):594–598. 2004.—It has been posited that certain balances in strength should exist for opposing muscle groups (e.g., hamstrings and quadriceps) or actions (e.g., internal and external rotation of the shoulder) to improve sports performance or limit the likelihood of injury. Typically, expensive laboratory equipment such as isokinetic devices has been used to evaluate strength balances. The purpose of this study was to determine if two popular field tests of strength could be used to assess a concise strength balance in roughly opposing muscle actions for the shoulder girdle. The two opposing movement actions of pressing away from the shoulder girdle and pulling in towards the shoulder girdle were assessed via the 1 repetition maximum bench press (1RM BP) and 1 repetition maximum pull-up (1RM PU), respectively. Forty-two rugby league players, comprising 21 national league (NRL) and 21 state league (SRL) players, who regularly performed both exercises in their training, served as subjects in this investigation. The equivalence of the strength ratio (BP/PU × 100) and correlation between tests were also examined. The pooled data exhibited a strength ratio of 97.7% (9.0%) and correlation of r = 0.81 between the 1RM BP of 130.1 ± 20.2 kg and 1RM PU of 133.1 ± 17.1 kg. The small standard deviation exhibited tends to indicate that athletes should exhibit a concise ratio of around 100% if pressing and pulling strength have been addressed fairly equally in training. However, some athletes may have body types, preexisting injuries, or training histories that predispose them to either excelling or performing poorly during strength activities for either upper body pressing or pulling actions, with differences in strength of up to 15% existing in some individuals. These factors need to be taken into account when prescribing training based upon the strength ratio between pressing and pulling strength.
Couple of problems with that study, IMO: the study just says that athletes who train both exercises equally will usually get equally strong in them.. it doesn't address whether having a ratio that differs a lot from 1 is actually bad for you. So you can say that athletes who train both will usually be able to do equal weight in both, but you can't say if not being able to do so will increase the chance of injury. They are taking a template approach: they are assuming that these athletes are doing it right and that they have a correct ratio, and then making their strength ratio a template that others should follow.
This is just from reading the abstract.. so it might be a bit hasty, but it seems that their study doesn't address frequency of injury over time in people with different ratios. Which is one of the things you could do to find out if a certain ratio is optimal for shoulder health.
Note: I'm not saying that being able to bench your BW 15 times but not being able to do one pullup is good for your shoulders, just that it's really hard to find the perfect ratio in science.. you'd actually have to do a cohort where you follow a punch of people, have them test their ratio once every month, year, or something, and see who got the most injuries.. Even that would be hard as you'd have to control for all sorts of confounders.
This is just from reading the abstract.. so it might be a bit hasty, but it seems that their study doesn't address frequency of injury over time in people with different ratios. Which is one of the things you could do to find out if a certain ratio is optimal for shoulder health.
Note: I'm not saying that being able to bench your BW 15 times but not being able to do one pullup is good for your shoulders, just that it's really hard to find the perfect ratio in science.. you'd actually have to do a cohort where you follow a punch of people, have them test their ratio once every month, year, or something, and see who got the most injuries.. Even that would be hard as you'd have to control for all sorts of confounders.
Couple of problems with that study, IMO: the study just says that athletes who train both exercises equally will usually get equally strong in them.. it doesn't address whether having a ratio that differs a lot from 1 is actually bad for you. So you can say that athletes who train both will usually be able to do equal weight in both, but you can't say if not being able to do so will increase the chance of injury. They are taking a template approach: they are assuming that these athletes are doing it right and that they have a correct ratio, and then making their strength ratio a template that others should follow.
This is just from reading the abstract.. so it might be a bit hasty, but it seems that their study doesn't address frequency of injury over time in people with different ratios. Which is one of the things you could do to find out if a certain ratio is optimal for shoulder health.
Note: I'm not saying that being able to bench your BW 15 times but not being able to do one pullup is good for your shoulders, just that it's really hard to find the perfect ratio in science.. you'd actually have to do a cohort where you follow a punch of people, have them test their ratio once every month, year, or something, and see who got the most injuries.. Even that would be hard as you'd have to control for all sorts of confounders.
You make some good points. I was using my education in corrective exercise that mentions if you have muscle strength imbalances between agonists and antagonists, it alters length tension relationships, force coupling relationships and joint mechanics. All of which could lead to injury. So if this is happening between the pecs and lats, you could make an argument for shoulder injuries and biceps tendonitis with this imbalance.
I don't think anyone has done anything beyond testing these two movements long term nor are there any solid ratios to confirm what I'm stating. I was making an educated statement based on what I have learned.