Working within your biomechanics to make gains

What's your best lift? We all have genetic predispositions for certain exercises and are sometimes extremely good at something that other people find incredibly difficult. The reason behind this is generally work ethic - you enjoy one exercise over another so you got very good at it. But every once and a while someone is just naturally gifted at a particular exercise. The problem with being good at an exercise or favoring an exercise over another is that we tend to over emphasize that exercise or at least that muscle group because its easy for us, which causes us to slack on other muscle groups causing muscular imbalances, which can lead to injury eventually.

I hate to admit it but I am guilty of such. I am very much quad and glute dominant when it comes to working out my legs. So much so that I'm actually able to get better depth, and potentially lift almost as much, on a front squat than I can on a standard squat. The reason is simple. I lacked hamstring and low back focus for so long that comparatively those muscles are underdeveloped and substantially weaker. Now because I'm a bit of a narcissist (shut up Steve), I refuse to have imbalance in my muscles. I've been working to alleviate myself of that weakness. Now class, what exercise works the posterior chain the hardest? Deadlifts! So all in all it was pretty simple; go harder on dead lifts and correct my imbalance. Now the problem with doing that is that by the time I got done with such a taxing exercise I wasn't able to go quite as heavy on a squat if I try to do them on the same day. So I had a couple options: one - split my leg day up. One day for deadlift, hip and hamstring work early in the week since those are my weaker muscle group and need more energy to get through, and quad and knee based exercise later in the week. Or, option two - put deadlifts with my back training. I opted for deadlift with back but an argument can be made for either.

Now you might not have the same problem as me, but the basic principle stays the same. For instance you might be extremely good at pushing exercises but awful at pulling exercises. A great way to alleviate that is pull first and push second. Should you ever have questions about you muscle imbalances ask one of our trainers, and fix those problems to develop the best possible physique your body has to offer.

-Jack Lazarus