Snicklefritz

I am left leg dominant and step much harder on that side with any sport that I do whether it is skiing, snowboarding, or horse riding. I would find it beneficial for the latter to address the strength imbalances. I already lift 3x/week using a book that carbonfiberboy recommended and that is great for overall core work and upper/lower body.

What would I need to do though if I want to strengthen my right leg so that I am not so left leg dominant?


On a completely different topic, what is up with personal trainers and the way they push people to extremes? I have tried personal trainers twice this year and three times overall, and each time it is the same. I mention what my goals are in the info sheets I have to fill out. I recap in email before we start the program, but what I end up with is completely different. This is the second time this year with a different trainer where I've been so sore I have trouble going up and down stairs, etc for several days. DOMS is one thing if it's just stiffness, but experiencing soreness doing very basic activities is something else.

I'm a healthy person with no underlying issues. When I was training with Max Testa, I never had this sort of stuff going on with anything he asked me to do. Was I tired from the cycling workouts he programmed for me? Yes, particularly at the end of the week or after a 3 week training block. However, I had quick recovery and never felt extreme soreness.

The personal trainer I was working with this summer helped me lose a lot of inches and build lean muscle, but never backed off the workouts to something that was sustainable 4-5x/week or that allowed me to still be effective while riding. I had better success with the cook carbonfiberboy recommended. However, I thought in the off season I'd try personal training again at the office since I don't have heavy duty horse shows to worry about now. Good time to work on more fitness. I talked about cardio workouts, tabata, etc. and even specified that I like the workouts he does for person X at the gym where there is a lot of cardio. What I ended up with was mostly weight lifting and leg presses that have given me such bad soreness for 5 days that I don't even want to run on the treadmill or do elliptical.


Are all personal trainers like this where they work you so hard as if you have no life outside of the gym? If they push hard enough that I can't do regular exercise for 5 days, what is the point if my goal is to lose weight?

This is a rant more than anything else I guess, but I was wondering how to get across to them that what they are given me is not what I asked for without hurting their feelings.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm such a bad boy . . . but maybe you aren't pushing yourself as much as you should? If a trainer can push you harder than you push yourself, does that say something about you or the trainer? OTOH, maybe you aren't recovering as well as you could? I get crap about this every time I mention it, but I use 15g flavoered whey protein with 2T sugar immediately before and after every hard workout. I put 5g of creatine in the after beverage. I drink that one while I'm still breathing hard. I've just started this timing after reading:
Timing of amino acid-carbohydrate ingestion alters anabolic response of muscle to resistance exercise | Endocrinology and Metabolism
and it definitely makes a difference.

The Rider's Fitness book is good for what it's for, but it doesn't get you ready to move heavy iron around. For that, try:
Body By Design Book: Make Your Dream Body A Reality!
or one of the plans here:
Find A Plan

It's better if you work yourself up to it at your own pace. Start with something you can move without worry and every week increase the weight on one or more sets. You want to work up to where you will fail to be able to complete the last and heaviest set, but over a number of weeks, not right away. It takes a lot of sets to build muscular endurance up to where you can recover from hard strength workouts. The trainers are hitting you too hard, too soon.

There is a theory among trainers to build up muscular strength and endurance before introducing hard cardio. I don't know the physiology behind that, but I notice that's what they do. I do that too, I guess without theorizing about it. Every October I hit the weights at the gym and don't even start intervals until February. All that time though, I'm simultaneously bringing up my cardio hours at moderate intensity and slowly introducing periods of higher intensity.

I used to use a modified Friel plan that went like this. I did these exercises in this order:
Barbell squats
Horizontal machine rows
Back machine
Leg sled
Bench press
1-legged calf raises
Crunches
Romanian deadlift
Lat pull-downs
Start with 1 set of 30 of each with enough weight that you struggle to do 30. When you're comfortable with that weight, add a second set, circuit style, same weight. After a couple weeks, add a 3rd set. As you add the second and third sets, you can increase the weight as long as you can do all the sets with the same weight, but struggling on the last set.

Then move to doing the same exercises, but with multiple sets of each one. Start with 3 X 10 reps. Gradually increase the sets and reduce the reps, staying with about 30 total reps, until you get down to 7 sets of 4 reps. As you go, keep increasing the weights so that you fail or almost fail on the last and heaviest set. If you start in October, the 7 X 4 should be in March, so that many weeks in each phase.

I got tired of doing the above after a few years so now I've been doing the Body by Design workouts. I think they give me more balanced fitness which is nice in my old age. I'm not quite so concerned with getting the ultimate cycling performance as I once was.

Your other question was about left-right balance. Many years ago I ruptured one of my Achilles tendons. Broke it right in half. By the time it healed to where I could work that leg, it had shrunk way down. It took years to get them back the same. I mostly did it by hiking in the mountains, concentrating on stepping up with the weak leg; by doing one-legged pedaling on my rollers; by doing one-legged leg presses, and by doing one-legged calf raises. I also have a minor problem of one leg being slightly shorter than the other. That's really common. But because I cycle a lot, it has sometimes made the two legs perform slightly differently. The above exercises keep that from getting away from me. I could shim to correct, but I'm too lazy to bother with it.

One legged pedaling must be done on a trainer or rollers. In the gear you'd use for endurance work, 2 minutes with each leg at 50-55 cadence, 2 minutes same gear legs together 90 cadence, 2 minutes each leg in a very low gear, 80-85 cadence, 2 minutes legs together in the original endurance gear at 90 cadence, repeat from the beginning until you cry. The chain must stay tight all the way around the circle. Never a slack chain. If you can't do 2 minutes and hold a tight chain, do shorter intervals and gradually increase. When I could repeat these 2 minute sets continuously for 45 minutes, I was in decent shape and ready for hard work.

wolfchild

Try doing one legged squats using only your weaker leg and see if that will balance out your strength.

GovernorSilver

No, they are not all the same.

If you're not getting on with your current trainer, look for another one. A good trainer knows how to design a program that fits your particular goals, instead of just blindly using a cookie cutter approach.

And yes, there are definitely ways to train so that after your session ends, you're not incapacitated for 5 days.

GeorgeBMac

As with a physician -- if he is simply dictating his personal views, preferences and biases without working with you as a team and respecting you and your needs and preferences, then move on...
... It takes a strong, knowledgeable service provider to rise above their own lack of knowledge.

But I agree that many personal trainers come at it using the high school football couch or marine drill instructor models as their bible: "You do it my way and you do it hard!"

I paid for a set of personal trainer sessions this time last year from one that I had worked with previously and trusted. But, for some reason she became the dictator. I told her about an injury to my right hip -- and she just ignored it and had me doing stuff that was actually dangerous -- and refused to modify her routine when I asked her to allow for my injury. I didn't go back.

Fortunately the personal trainers at my new gym (HealthTrax) are much more professional.

Some people go at exercise in an all-out, all or nothing way. I don't. I see exercise as a lifelong habit that must be developed and, while it is never easy, neither should it be overly unpleasant. The human body was built for endurance and it works best when it gets a little everyday rather than overwhelm it with a lot on infrequent occasions. That is not to say you shouldn't challenge it with some occasional stressors like HIIT training. But you also need the long-slow-distance for long term health as well. For most people the high intensity stuff is just too unpleasant to make it the ONLY avenue.

It's instructive to watch the personal trainers at my new gym: they are not going all-out. It almost looks like they're going too easy. But a closer exam shows that they are both working and using perfect form while doing it... I see them doing long, slow, well controlled motions with the weights...

But, as for the "left side dominant". You don't say HOW dominant it is, but I have to wonder if the left is so much stronger or the right so much weaker? Specifically, why is the right side weak. If it's a little, that may be normal. But both sides should be pretty close to each other. If the right side is much weaker, then it may be due to a nerve problem such as a pinched nerve rather than a muscle problem (although a pinched nerve will eventually generate weak, debilitated, atrophied muscles from lack of stimulation).

I wonder if you need to have that evaluated by a physiatrist or physical therapist or sports medicine physician to determine the degree of difference and possible causes and solutions?

I had a pinched nerve from the hip injury and have been working on it for a full year now -- and the 2 sides are now pretty much equal again. But, certain muscles on the right side were far weaker than on the left. Actually, they were close to being atrophied. It didn't show up so much in day-to-day activities because other muscles would compensate. But a detailed exam by a physiatrist and a follow-up by the Physical Therapist he prescribed showed which specific muscles were weak and he developed specific exercises to target the specific muscles that were atrophied. Now, at the gym I am the only person doing those exercises --- but they have been effective.

Carbonfiberboy 

Why train hard? Because otherwise not much happens. I've been training for 58 years. I started by doing mile runs when I was 12. I didn't discover weights until I went in the Army at 20. A year later I was climbing in Yosemite on weekends.

A very good thing to mention is that lifting to failure means only lifting until your form starts to slip. It's the same when doing intervals. Stop when you begin to slow. That's failure, and that's an important point:
The Principle Of Training To Failure!

Snicklefritz

Re: muscle imbalances (@GeorgeB), about a year and a half ago I sprained my left ankle and did about 6 weeks of physical therapy to strengthen it. So I think what happened was I got even stronger on that leg whereas my right leg stayed the same. Where I see it are two places:
1) On a horse where changes in very subtle leg or weight cues tell the horse something different. Horses can feel a fly on their back so if I shift my weight, they feel that even more.

2) When I do step-ups on a box, it is very easy on the left leg, both in terms of strength as well as balance. On the right leg, I have to go slower to keep good form.

Also, my knees and feet do not track up exactly straight. I toe out the way a ballet dancer does. So if I point my feet forward and bend my knees, my knees point inward. This makes it more difficult to do certain types of plyometric exercises and leg work like lunges.

@CFB: I agree that if the personal trainer pushes me harder than I push myself it says something about both of us. What keeps happening every time is that they tell me they can do X kind of program but I get something completely different. I'll try one more time with the current person and hope they can turn it around. Otherwise I'll just go back to cycling, except working out indoors on rollers or trainer until the weather is good enough to go back outside again.



Based on what people are saying here, I may need to do some physical therapy on my right leg to copy what I had been doing on my left leg after the ankle sprain. I'm positive that has something to do with it.

GovernorSilver

Sounds like a good plan - do the PT first before going with a personal trainer. Rehab is the speciality of physical therapists, whereas you're kind of rolling the dice with personal trainers.

DoubleTap

OP, I have a similar issue with imbalance and also some hip and shoulder mobility issues from college football and lack of stretching in my adulthood. It took me a while to find the right personal trainer, but once I did, it has been a game changer. He listens, holds me accountable and pushes me. He does a functional movement screen every 4 weeks and then prescribes corrective movements to be done between my regular workouts to help correct some of my imbalances and mobility issues. Most of those have been focused on my core strength and also on hip mobility using a hip series from this ebook (neither me or my trainer have any investment in the book; I just found it helpful).

Hip Neutral

I agree with most or all of the advice given above, and I wanted to add my perspective that finding the right trainer helped me tremendously.

GeorgeBMac

Good for you for identifying the muscle imbalances on your own! (I had to go to a Physical Therapist before I realized that -- well actually two: the first misdiagnosed it). Once you understand what is happening the fix becomes much more apparent -- but I still needed a top of line physical Therapist (one who actually looked at me and my individual problem rather than defaulting to some fixed protocol) to develop an effective plan for fixing the problem.

GeorgeBMac

Yes, that's part of the trouble listening to experts: "Train Hard", "Moderate Intensity", "High Intensity", "Train to Failure" all seem to mean different things to different people -- yet they are thrown out there rather casually as generalized truisms like "don't eat the yellow snow". Healthy living is always a continuum and it is never black and white. Defining the terms clearly and unambiguously is critical...

GovernorSilver

I agree.

In the serious powerlifting world, they use periodization in their training - meaning, every now and then you drop the weight on your squat or your bench press or whatever - it's a time tested strategy for avoiding plateaus. They also call it "cycling" but I don't want to confuse anyone here . Even on the day that the lifter has dropped the weight to begin a new cycling, he's still "training hard" - he's paying strict attention to technique, applying effort, etc.

Snicklefritz

Great discussion everybody.

I talked to the personal trainer I had started with at the office gym (think big big big company, so they are careful who they hire)
and said hey I need to figure out some other way to train since a week of soreness is too much. He said 3-4 days of soreness after a strength training workout is not unexpected but a full week is not normal. He said the weights were light so it was more likely the volume of the reps or the movement pattern that did it.

IMHO too many exercises involved the same muscles, step ups on a high box, leg press on a slide with 2 legs, then with single legs.

To me 3-4 days of what he thinks is "not unusual" is too much because it interferes with my ability to be consistent in the gym. Consistency is what I need in order to drop another 20-25 lbs. I'll give the guy one more chance, but if the next workout isn't more in line with what I described originally, I'm just going to stick to what I know works which is endurance on the bike or something similar in the gym. That is until I am close to my goal weight and can afford a few missed days from being sore.

jsk

Ironically the best way to prevent DOMS is to lift more often, not less.

Being sore for several days is normal when starting a new program or coming off a break. But once you're lifting regularly you shouldn't get sore like that. Before completely ditching the routine your trainer gave you, try sticking with it for a couple weeks and I bet the DOMS issue will resolve itself.

Carbonfiberboy 

Over the years I've frequently had several months in a row when I didn't lift though I was still riding hard and hiking. The first time back at the squat rack, even using what is for me light weights, I'll be sore for many days. That's just how it is. I don't think there's a work-around. Like the PT said, "movement pattern." I'm using muscles here and there that don't get hard work on the bike. However, since they are light weights, I can lift even though I'm sore. It takes me about a month before I can increase the weight much. When I start, it's about increasing endurance. Once I have that, the weight can go up.

I lift twice a week and only do the same exercise once a week. Some weeks my program will have one day of mostly pushing and one day of mostly pulling, that sort of thing. Many people lift more often, which I could do if I didn't ride, hike, ski, etc. I'm sure not going to give up that so I can lift more because lifting isn't my focus. I only lift to assist my other sports and twice a week is enough for that. Be that as it may, once I got a little endurance from lifting for a couple weeks or so, I raised my weights every week. This year I started lifting on August 30. I'm lifting ~double what I started with. January 1, I'll change programs and start doing the same but fewer lifts twice a week, still only raising the weight once a week. I should have the conditioning to do that.

Snicklefritz

Thanks again everyone for the detailed responses. I've started doing some one-leg drills on the stationary trainer at home and am slowly building up that sort of thing.

In the meantime, I spoke with the people who manage the gym I go to and told them the issues I was having with the personal trainer I had been working with. They were very cool about the whole thing and said they would be willing to let me do sample workouts with the different trainers at no charge, so I could find the one that worked for me. I'm now working with a different trainer who is a much better match. He's a cyclist himself, so he understands the theory behind building a strong base. His workouts are hard, but better balanced in that he does a wider variety of high intensity exercises, not all the same thing (squats, legs, ad naseum) like the other guy was doing. I'm tired after a workout and sore for maybe 1-2 days, but it doesn't last much longer than that.

He said he would also be willing to write up a plan for what to do in the gym the rest of the week to build a good base until the roads are good enough to start riding outside.

ESTrainSmart

I'm a personal trainer and coach with a B.S. in Kinesiology from Indiana University Bloomington. You're going to run into a lot of unqualified personal trainers because the profession only requires a certification instead of a license. This means you're more likely to get trainers who have little knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and likely purchased a "certification" from a bogus website. Some gyms and studios weed out the uneducated trainers by requiring a B.S. or M.S. in an exercise-related field, but honestly, it can still be hit or miss. I've been an independent contractor for about 7 years, so I've seen a lot of trainers come and go, and although some might hold a degree and certification from a nationally recognized certifying body, I still see their clients performing exercises with incorrect form.

Since it seems you're already working with someone, I highly recommend having your trainer research gluteal amnesia and motor control training. If you want to learn how to train the core correctly, I highly recommend studying any article that Dr. Stuart McGill produced. All of this information is free on the internet. Every client I've worked with has experienced massive improvements just by retraining the neuromuscular system through specific motor control exercises. My training style involves combining motor control with other training modalities. Perfect technique and muscle activation should always be the goal, but it's hard to identify with an untrained eye- that's mainly why I've been successful on my own. Also, soreness from lifting shouldn't last more than two days, especially with closed chain exercises. If the trainer progresses you correctly, you should be able to perform exhausting workouts, but recover within one or two days. If it's takes longer than two days, communicate it with your trainer and make sure he or she adjusts the workout appropriately.

---
Vincent Vergara
Personal Trainer/ Coach
EatSleepTrainSmart.com