I am imbalanced. I've known it since I started working with the trainer a year ago, and it hasn't gotten better. I have been working on it, but it's still plaguing me. Initially, I asked the trainer if I should be concerned because my right arm was weaker than my left and he told me several times not to worry about it, that it would correct itself over time.
It made sense; if I focused on the exercises we were doing, everything would get stronger. After a while, I didn't pay attention to it. Then, this summer I did one movement in a friend's car to push back her seat and, bam, I thought I tore my rotator cuff. It turns out I didn't, or if I did I'm asymptomatic now, but it put me in a position where I was favoring that same right arm for a while.
I had troubles from the start because all the spine problems gave me issues on my right side. Couple that with being left-handed and triple that with having that injured elbow on the right side and I had a perfect recipe for favoring the right arm.
The shoulder is better today--as in it doesn't hurt at all. The elbow is healing, meaning it hurts dramatically less. I'm still not sure if something is torn, but for now it's not that much of an impedance. That leaves the historical favoring I've had from my spine issues that I need to work hard to overcome.
It's pretty spectacular how you can look like you're doing a particular exercise such as pullups or pushups or squat thrust evenly, when in reality one arm is doing a significantly larger portion of the work. I didn't realize this was so until I spent time focusing on it; and I started doing that, because I couldn't open a jar one day...
I'm left handed, but I still do some things right hand dominant, including opening jars. With the elbow pain came gripping pain--opening a jar or even lifting a cup of coffee was painful; so I favored the right hand and arm degraded in muscle strength. When I couldn't open the jar I thought, "this is odd, I've never had trouble opening a jar of tomato sauce before. I wonder what the trouble is?" It was particularly strange because I had been exercising the past year and that was something I hadn't done before. And I'd never had trouble opening jars ever.
So now I'm focusing on balance in my workouts and I'm realizing how much I have to do to catch up my lazy right arm. I suppose it's nice to have a goal to work towards, though.
The Big Boy Update: We got a text message from one of my son's teachers today. He apparently told her, "my daddy unties knots all Saturday. I tie them and his job is to untie." I texted her back saying, "you taught him how to tie knots. THANKS." To which she laughed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was banging on something with a plastic hammer from their tool belt set. I asked her what she had and she said, "a bam".
Fitness Update: I don't like it when he has the door to the basketball court open. It usually means rounds of terribly uncomfortable or extra difficult exercises that day. My least favorite is when he has us get in the pushup position with our feet on a little cloth. Then, you get drag yourself down the court and push yourself back, using your hands only. The term "gasp-worthy" comes to mind. This morning, the door to the basketball court was open...
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