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Strong right arm, weak left arm


*BiGBonES**

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Has anyone got any advice for making my left arm stronger? The right side of my body has always been much stronger than my left side, and has far more control. From a young age I've always played football with my right foot, wrote with my right arm, played cricket, tennis, bowling, badminton etc with my right arm, so its had 20years of getting stronger than my left arm. Also, when I used to do press-ups every night is a teenager, I tended to use my right arm more than my left arm.

 

So how should I go about correcting this, so far I've tried doing a few more reps with my left arm, and concentrating on free weights where each arm has its own individual weight, but I can't tell the difference. I've been doing it for about 6 months.

 

Anyone else have this problem?

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i busted some ligaments in my left shoulder and have this problem ever since. a physical therapist gave me some pretty solid advice, hopefully you can put it to use.

 

use free weights for an exercise, like a dumb bell bench press. grab two free weights, but with your strong arm, use a lighter weight. with your weak arm, use a challenging (but reasonable) weight. instead of pressing both arms up at the same time, alternate one arm at a time. try to do a high number with the light weight / strong arm, and a lower number with the challenging weight / weak arm. do that style for 3 sets, and a fourth set with the light weight on both arms, pressing at the same time. use the same concept for other exercises. if you do machines, instead, try to find ones that will let you do independent lifts similar to above.

 

be very, very, very careful with your lifts. be very aware of technique, and start with a weight so light it embarrasses you, otherwise you're going to hurt yourself and end up with an even weaker arm.

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I have the same problem, I do 2 sets of curls at 21 reps... its kinda cool. 7 halfway from the bottom to mid, 7 from mid to all the way up and 7 full curls..

 

I can do the full set with my right arm, but If I want to do the full set with my left I have to drop down to a 5 lbs less weight.

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lifting to isolate one side is to gain strength lost from an injury.. i wouldn't recommend lifting different weight amounts for each arm for more then a week.. and if you are.. you should be alternating these exercises with ones that use both arms equally.. just make sure that you are putting equal stress on both arms when you are doing single bar exercises and not letting the stronger arm carry the load

 

having one arm stronger then the other is natural.. and after lifting regularly for some weeks you won't even notice it..

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it'll just balance out on its own if there hasnt been an injury on it, what i did when i first started/ kinda still do is whenever doing dumbells i always do my left side first and if i only got like 7 reps in thats how many i do with my right arm even if i knew i could do more, i always made sure my form was correct when doing barbell workouts aswell, always made sure both sides whent up at the same time.. then again i'm kinda ocd when it comes to that kinda stuff

 

dont know why but the thought of one side being bigger than the other has always bugged the bejeepers outta me, both sides are the same strength now but i swear ones bigger than the other, must be mental or something cause everyone else says they cant notice :shrug03:

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I hurt my left shoulder trying to make my left side stronger too. I never really work out, so I just did pushups in my room, and situps. Could do 100+ situps easy (the fulls ones), but once I got to 100 I started getting bored of the motion. So I wanted to do 100 pushups. After working on it for about 3 weeks (at start could only do about 30ish in a row, chest to floor) I broke 80 in a row. I think the best I did was 87, then hurt my shoulder. Had to quit for a few weeks, and havent gotten back into it.

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