Rebalance arms?

Korean_King

I’m calling upon the mfp gods for help again

AnnPT77 where are you?

Long story short, I ripped open my finger on a chain basketball net back in 8th grade and was put into a splint/cast + stitches for months

Left arm became weaker than right and it’s been that way ever since

Recently learned how to weight train properly and noticed my left arm is always giving out before my right arm

I started to switch to a lighter weight and pump out more reps when my left arm gives out compared to my right until point of failure

What is the proper way to rebalance my left arms to be as strong as my right arm again?

Thanks in advance from everyone that gives me advice

Retroguy2000

I'm surprised the imbalance has remained this long, assuming you believe it's more than the typical imbalance many people have.

You should ditch the barbell (except for squats) and ditch machines (again, except legs), and switch to dumbbells. Do unilateral exercises, sample list below. Left arm first, usual progression method with most sets 1-2 reps from failure, maybe final set to failure if you want. Right arm, same number of reps. Your right arm will still have a few more reps left in the tank, that's fine. Your left should catch up.

Sample db exercises:

Biceps : Seated/standing curl, hammer curl.
Triceps : One arm French press.
Chest : Can't think of a unilateral here, but if you use db's or cables instead of bar or machine it should help.
Back : One arm bent over row.
Shoulders: Standing one arm press.

Btw, you can put @ if front of a user to summon them.

ninerbuff

You could train lighter with the left and keep increasing the resistance little by little WITHOUT increasing the resistance on the right till your left catches up. The body adapts to stress pretty quickly so it shouldn't take too long for it to catch up unless there's some damage beyond what you've mentioned.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

yirara

Is the arm overall weaker or is it specific muscles? And is there a possibility this weakness is not due to your injury but simply because you're right-handed? I know my left arm is generally weaker than the right one and muscles just a tad smaller because I do everything with right. (until I broke my right proximal humerus and lost the long-head biceps tendon anyway). I tried to fix this by doing exercises with a dumbbell or kettlebell on the left side first. Then I still have more energy overall to do the lifts because I noticed using a barbell was more difficult in that right was just compensating for left. I'm not consistent enough with strength training, mind. I did see some improvement but then stopped again

Korean_King

Unfortunately because I used to be very lazy, I didn’t follow any of the things I was advised to after my splint came off and did little to no physical activity to help my situation for the next 7 years. I think I do have a greater than typical imbalance but not too terrible (or I could just be over exaggerating) it seems like a pretty noticeable difference to me though and luckily I’ve only been weight training with dumbbells so I really like the idea of starting with the weak arm and matching reps with the strong

Appreciate the advice friends, I will try some of this advice and see if that can fix my problem

Thanks a lot!

AnnPT77

Irrelevant comment, since you mentioned me: I'm glad you got good answers from knowledgeable folks above like Retro, Niner, Yirara.

Strength training is not a thing I'm qualified to give detailed advice about. My knowledge ends somewhere around "people should strength train for best health" and "use a good program". I know a few things related to my (non-lifting) sport, but I don't much lift now (which is a bad life choice, yup). I did lift seriously for a couple of years in the past, but that's it.

herringboxes

Kinglevy, feel free to report back in a few weeks and tell us how things are going.

Korean_King

herringboxes wrote: »

Kinglevy, feel free to report back in a few weeks and tell us how things are going.

I’m back! seems like the advice was right, as I continued to weight train the right way this time with proper form, technique, progressive overload and within point of failure, my left arm caught back up. I made sure on some days to start my DB exercises with my left and match the reps with my right

Appreciate all the help and advice from you guys

tomcustombuilder

Biceps are a small muscle and recover quickly. Train your left arm more frequently than the right and don’t use lighter weights.

Many times it’s more of a mind muscle connection with one arm being dominant due to being used more often so the lagging arm need more frequent stimulation and you need to be THINKING about that muscle when training it and not just going through the motions.

herringboxes

Great update, thanks for checking in!