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On Fitness By Richard Seven

The One-Sided Story

Working your weak parts will bring back your balance

TO SOME DEGREE, we all go through life leaning and listing, bowing and bending. The chores we do and the choices we make shape us. We become misaligned, asymmetrical.

All kinds of disciplines try to make us whole again, but just living two-handed can help. How many right-handers can even eat lunch with a fork in their left hands? If you kicked a soccer ball with your "other" foot, would the ball do more than dribble along? When's the last time you even tried to use the other side? How many of you curl challenging weights in your strong arm and then just peter . . . out . . . on the other?

This one-sidedness was the impetus for an exercise-video series by FitPrime last year. The workouts were hard-core fusion, featuring emphasis on "non-dominant training." The idea is that you should start your unilateral moves on the weaker side.

"By prioritizing your lifts by training your non-dominant side first, you are giving that lift the most amount of energy and mental focus," said Keli Roberts, the certified personal trainer who led several of the videos. "That's important in terms of bringing balance back into the body. When we always work from our strong side first or always bilaterally (both sides at once) we never allow our non-dominant side to gain strength and coordination."

I haven't found any research proving the point, but it makes some sense. Being so prone to one side or the other affects how your body parts mesh. I know that those less experienced at lifting weights let their strong side carry the load and their weak side cheat when working bilaterally.

It is not just a matter of weight-training. Many sports only challenge one side of the body. That's why I favor whole-body sports like basketball and handball.

Most of the time, says University of Connecticut kinesiologist William Kraemer, we don't notice imbalance if the difference is less than 10 percent. Tennis players sometimes show extreme differences from one side to the other. Australian tennis great Rod Laver is perhaps the most famous example of this. The forearm of his racket hand rivaled Popeye's. His other was like the rest of us.

"We have found that in our tennis weight-training studies where we work with bilateral exercises and strengthen the weak side to match the dominant side we can make up the difference with six to nine months of training," Kraemer says.

Most of the time our imbalance is slight and acceptable. Some suggest that you examine your posture in the mirror or have a certified personal trainer or health professional do it. I recently did a "plum-line test," which measures your posture against a straight line. I was shocked at how my right shoulder leans forward. I blame it on my computer mouse.

If you do seem to have an issue of imbalance, Kraemer suggests the following:

• Concentrate on the weak side until it catches up;

• Be conscious of your right and left limb handling equal force when doing bilateral exercises;

• Overload the weak side with unilateral exercises and do a moderate load on the strong side until you get fairly close to even;

• Work the muscle from different exercise angles to strengthen the whole muscle with different unilateral and eventually bilateral exercises.

Bilateral strength training — the bench press, squat, barbell curls — is favored by most in the weight room. It saves time, for one thing, and more importantly, it challenges large muscle systems.

Seattle personal trainer Nancy Jerominski says all her clients have some imbalances, but the trick is to work without getting caught up in appearance. Appearance will improve once the body is working well. She cautions that proper technique is paramount.

"Unilateral or non-dominant training is something that can be used to help bring up an imbalance, if used judiciously after assessment," she says. "Just about any exercise that employs both limbs can be done using only one. Single leg squats are much harder than using both legs, so if one's body mechanics aren't correct, they'll be taking their knees to their orthopedic surgeon."

Anna Benson, creator of the FitPrime workouts (www.whfn.com), says the over-reliance on one side poses serious consequences for the aged or others who are sedentary.

She suggests trying to incorporate the "other side" in a series of life's small rituals. Pick up packages with the other arm. Make sure your hips descend and ascend evenly when getting in and out of a chair. Balance on that off leg if you can while putting your pants on.

Richard Seven is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. He can be reached at rseven@seattletimes.com.