No Secret to Balanced Training
By
Ryan Patrick
Anatomy can be pretty intense and sometimes more complex than necessary.
Balanced training is an old idea, so why beat a dead horse? Because bodybuilding
dogma continues to prevail and everyone seems to define balanced training
differently. So really…what the hell is balanced training?
To your average bodybuilder, balanced training might mean relatively equal
sets of quads, hamstrings, calves, abs, chest, back, shoulders, biceps, and
triceps. More training for the “bigger” muscle groups and some extra for the
lagging body parts should bring you to a nice balance. This definition surely
works if you want to be a well-oiled, shaved, “manly” man. And I have full
rights to poke fun—I’ve been on stage a time or two.
If movement patterns are more relevant to you, you might define balanced
training as using the patterns equally. So you’ll have a 1:1 ratio of hip
dominant/knee dominant movements and vertical/horizontal pushes and pulls. That
seems to make more sense, but what about the people who sit at a desk all day?
They obviously need more of something to fix their postural issues.
In the book, Diagnoses and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes,
author S. Sahrmann suggests that the causes of deviations in joint movement
patterns are repeated movements and sustained postures. A balanced training
program looks great on paper, but does it carry over into the real world and
does it restore an out of balance body? The latter question might not resemble
balance to the average eye.
I think body part splits (as a whole) definitely fail in the real world for
anything other than pure bodybuilding. However, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t
ever use or perform isolation movements. If your triceps can support a 275-lb
bench and your chest is capable of 315 lbs, what will you bench? Fix the weak
link. You’ll typically see a division of chest and shoulders (horizontal pushes
and vertical pushes) but rarely a separation of back, which lumps the horizontal
and vertical pulls into one category. This alone could cause some imbalances.
Of course, you have to ask yourself if muscles are true antagonists or not.
For instance, both the lats and the pec major internally rotate the arms (the
palms turn toward the thighs). Athletes, average clients, and the girl next door
don’t need a chest and biceps day. Body part training is a little reductionist
in nature, but you have to remember that everything is integrated. “The shin
bone’s connected to the knee bone, the knee bone…” Even kids know that. So if
you have problems with one muscle, there will be downstream effects on other
joints.
Everything is in a pretty delicate balance, and yes, if you read enough,
you’ll believe that everything will pretty much f*** you up. I don’t want to
leave you high and dry. The main thing to do is train. I don’t want to discount
the importance of the finer points of anatomy, but if you get a good assessment
from a qualified professional, you should be able to patch up any potential
flaws in programming before they are realized. Then, get strong, assess, and
reassess along the way. No one said that “corrective” exercises had to be easy.
People need more hip dominant work in general—how bout an “easy” set of heavy
deadlifts?
It’s likely that if all of your movements match closely in strength, you’ll
have appropriate forces on your joints when they move. Thus, everything should
do its appropriate job. There are places that are more common than others for
producing energy leaks—tight hip flexors, pecs, lats, or a weak glute medius.
However, these interventions are fairly simple to include into a current
program. You have to avoid trying to micromanage every detail of your movement.
It starts with one tangent, and you build on it until you are concerned with
getting adequate VMO activation in your squat and wondering why your max squat
is stuck at 185 lbs.
Balanced training should keep or put you in optimal alignment. Find out what
it takes to get there and stay there. I don’t want to present a problem with
training and then leave you without anything to implement so I’ll end with some
random pointers.
If you have been using body part splits for any length of time, stop—at least
for a while. There’s always a time and a place for them, but the research and
anecdotal evidence favors higher frequency over higher volume. With that being
said, if you’ve had a hard-on for the bench press, try stretching your posterior
rotator cuff muscles. They all play roles in depressing the humeral head. An
emphasis on chest and shoulders over time will cause an injury if you don’t
account for the training on all antagonists.
Remember, corrective training doesn’t have to be easy. Work on getting full
range of motion in all of the movements and get proficient at them. Worry about
glute med and VMO firing issues later. If you are moving correctly, they’ll
likely be an afterthought.
References
Sahrmann S (2002) Diagnoses and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes.
Mosby, Inc.
Ryan Patrick is a graduate student in health and exercise science at
Colorado State University. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2008
cum laude. Check out his blog at
www.patrickperformancetraining.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products
and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the
industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit
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