Muscle imbalance refers to muscle strength imbalance and/or muscle length/tension imbalance. The fascia (connective tissue) and muscles in our bodies react to loads placed on them by our everyday activities, postures, and sports that we do. Habitual postures can lead to strength and muscle tension imbalances too. For instance, we all have a dominant hand and leg that we prefer to use and often stand with more weight on this leg and use one hand for everyday tasks. This naturally leads to unequal strength in one arm and leg as more muscle bulk is added to the dominant side and less to the non-dominant side. Many sports use one side more than the other such as racquet sports and hockey. Others are more symmetrical like swimming, cycling, rowing, and running, but even when doing these sports, you may do this in an uneven way, leading to muscle imbalances. Physiotherapists are good at analysing your movement and suggesting changes to how you are moving or doing activities of daily living to reduce these imbalances. Manual therapy, including myofascial release and joint mobilisations, can help to reduce these imbalances in conjunction with strength, balance and coordination exercises.
Some of these unbalanced movements are very subtle and may involve long lines of fascial tension that can affect areas of your body far away from the muscle imbalance. Symptoms will often start for no obvious reason due to these areas of tension and weakness but this may take a long time. Our bodies can tolerate small imbalances without giving us symptoms and it is very rare for anyone to be fully symmetrical. If you change your activities or sports, it may reveal areas of weakness and tension that you were previously unaware of, and lead to pain and other symptoms. If this happens to you it is worth speaking to a physiotherapist to resolve this.
Another way to reveal these imbalances is to to yoga or Pilates. The exercises in these classes are done in a balanced wat, equally for each side and can both reveal weakness and imbalances and help correct them. However, in a class setting, the exercises are not individualised for your imbalances and can lead to pain. Physiotherapists who have experience in yoga and/or Pilates can help you to develop an individualised programme of exercises for long term improvement in your pain and symptoms. This may be necessary before you can start or return to a class setting.
