As I go about eating breakfast I’m racking my brains as to why my traps and neck are fairly sore and stiff.
One side mildly sore and not so stiff, the other side more sore and fairly stiff. Call it 30% on the mild side, 50% on the higher side.
(Semi-arbitrary #s, I’m trying to show not dehabilitatidly sore, but noticeable enough.)
I’d done one arm snatches into fairly long overhead carries…again ONE hand.
I did no reps on the opposite side, and yet the unworked side had roughly 60% of the soreness that I had on the worked side carried. The soreness and work had carried over across the center line.
Somewhere on Chaos And Pain a study was referenced where a 70% carryover was found to an injured unworked limb by training the healthy side.
(I’d like to read that study.)
This percentage is similar to what I observe myself as an experiment of N=1.
(Emevas at Mythical Strength has at least alluded to similar experience.)
Two things:
- Life is imbalanced.
- Like i was saying above, the body naturally wants to stay relatively balanced.
It’s why I’m not worried if I do more reps on the strong side. It’s called the strong side after all, and to the horror of at least one lifting partner I’ve purposely left rep count uneven.
On a wacky note of imbalance, my weak side has slightly better grip strength in certain capacities.
I just don’t believe we need perfect symmetry and balance. In fact I think the body naturally prefers slight IMBALANCE as life is not perfectly symmetrical.
The body is rugged. With the right mental it is hard to get hurt and easy to recover if you do. The body will adapt to anything and function
well enough and accordingly.
And so you know, about a week ago playing around in the backyard with a light barbell…I pulled 285 with one side loaded 55lbs heavier than the other.
Peace,
-J