Hey y'all, it's been a while since we had a real post here so I'm just going to put up a random question to the group.
Is it bad to have weird imbalances? Today I got a sports massage from Kim (the high jump coach) and she noticed that my calves are two different sizes. When I got home I carefully measured them and, sure enough, the left one maxes out at 35cm diameter and the right one has a broadest point of a little over 36cm. What the what?!
Observations:
- Megumi has two different sized/shaped sides of her butt.
- lots of people have different lengthed legs.
- people's dominant/stronger sides would usually be bigger so that must be normal
- does a difference in size necessarily indicated a difference in power/strength?
Non sequitur: Kim is also going to be representing the NFTC in the high jump on Saturday at Oxy. I'm thinking about making us jerseys.
8 comments:
Rowers who use only one oar will often spend more time rowing for one side of the boat than the other, forcing a greater amount of development on one side of their body. As a result of this, my right arm is noticeably larger (and stronger) than my left arm. It's kind of gross. When I become tired while doing push-ups or dips, I'll tilt to the right to place more of my body weight on my right arm. I think the muscles in my right leg are a little larger than those in my left as well, but I'm guessing that running has balanced this out a bit.
But rowers use both hands:
http://www.huskycrew.org/19934.jpg
I'm confused -- wouldn't both sides get developed the same?
KB, do you think yours has something to do with the large amount of track work recently at at high speed? Maybe the curvature of the track would make your right side stronger?
I've also had a lopsided calves after an injury, but it never caused any issues. I think whether or not an imbalance has a detrimental effect has a lot to do with which two items the discrepancy is between. Like having one larger calf may be okay, but if the strength differential is between two muscles in the same calf = shin splints.
Peter has a lot of weird imbalances in the core/hip and I know that causes a lot of problems. Though I presume a lot of other physiological phenomena also contribute to whether or not a problem manifests...
My right leg is longer than my left, my left side is significantly more runty (across all muscle groups), and my left leg has been plagued with injuries... are any of those related, and if so which way does the causal relationship go? I have no idea... the leg length thing didn't seem to hold Pre back.
Hi, Ryan,
Although both hands are gripping the oar, the path of your upper body does not follow the path of the oar handle (the oar handle follows an arc while your body goes straight backwards). Thus, the biceps and back muscles on one side of your body will become stronger than the other. Most rowers I know (including myself) developed their inside arm (the side of their body close to the long end of the oar) more than their outside arm. Some teams make their rowers occasionally switch sides to avoid this "problem," but in the end, your legs do most of the work so the difference isn't too pronounced, I suppose.
From,
Dennis
I think the statement "One leg is longer than the other" and "one calf is larger than the other" is true in every single person that has ever walked the earth. To arbitrary precision, that statement doesn't mean anything. So what's significant? Millimeters? Probably not. Meters? Probably yes. And why should running on a curved but flat track at ~5-6min pace stress one side more than the other? When I'm turning left I put my left foot on the next foot strike slightly to the left of where it was on the previous stride. I think we're running pretty much normal to the track surface. Maybe Usain Bolt isn't.
But not all tracks are banked, right? Also, doesn't the right side of your body have to travel a longer distance when you run around a track than the left side? It's probably pretty negligible over one lab, but over many, many laps?
I can understand why parts of your body are bigger though. My left calf was significantly bigger than my right calf when I was injured. Also I'm right handed, so my right arm is significantly stronger and bigger than my left arm. Oddly enough though, my left pec is noticeably stronger (and bigger) than my right one. And that little muscle in front of your ankle bone on the top outer part of your foot? That thing is huge on my right foot and almost invisible on my left foot!
So I definitely agree that everyone has these imbalances, no exceptions. Does this affect our performance? I don't think it necessarily does.
Was Prefontaine's right leg longer than his left? In "Best Efforts," Kenny Moore states that during that well-known of physiological testing of elite runners in the '70s, Prefontaine was found to cross his right leg over to the left side of his body when ran. Moore goes on to speculate that this may have aided Prefontaine's efficiency in handling turns on the track. Perhaps this is something to think about.
"Prefontaine was found to cross his right leg over to the left side of his body when ran. Moore goes on to speculate that this may have aided Prefontaine's efficiency in handling turns on the track."
Not everyone gets this? In high school I always noticed that after track season, even when running in a straight line my right leg would cross over my center line more than the other way around. I attributed this to running so much on tracks and handling the left turns, and it always took a few weeks to sort of adjust to running mostly straight.
I'm not convinced this is something specific to pre.
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