How to Address Side-to-Side Strength Differences

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What should you do if one side is weaker than the other?

The truth is that a little bit of an asymmetry in strength between sides is perfectly normal.

After all, our bodies are inherently not the same from left to right.

And of course most of us have a dominant side that we gravitate to for day-to-day tasks.

But if that strength asymmetry is a couple of reps or more, then you might want to work on evening things out.

For example, suppose you’re able to overhead press a given weight 8 times on your right side but only 6 times on your left (a 25% difference).

Here are three strategies for addressing strength asymmetries and narrowing the right/left gap:

1) After your six *strict* reps on the left, immediately perform 2 *push presses*.

For the push presses, use a little dip in the knees to drive the weight up with momentum.

This way, you bypass the strength requirement of the concentric (lifting) phase of the exercise.

Then lower the weight back down under control, taking advantage of the fact that we are stronger in the eccentric (lowering) phase of our exercises!

2) After your six reps, take a 10- to 15-second breather, then try to perform 2 more reps. This technique is called “rest-pause.”

3) Start your sets with the left side. After performing your regularly scheduled 3 sets (left/right, left/right, left/right), do an extra (fourth) set on the left.

After several weeks of implementing one or a combination of these techniques, you should find that strength imbalance becomes a thing of the past!

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