Keeping things in proportion when working out

Eyes Without a Face

Is there any way of knowing if you're exercising certain muscles too much relative to others? I'm sure there are people who go to the gym all the time without the advice of personal trainers, and without realising it, fail to exercise certain muscle groups.

I know it's not like I'm not going to end up with a strength imbalance, but is there any way of knowing how much I should do with each weight. Luckily, I don't do that much weight lifting anyway. But if I was to do more, I'd continue to lift just whatever feels right(my own judgement).

Is there any techniques you can use in order to know how much is the right amount for each muscle in order to keep things in proportion. Is there some sort of a weight ratio for various exercises?

BetterThanThou

It's not a full answer to your question, but I've found one thing that helps quite a bit to ensure both sides are getting exercised equally is to do work outs with dumbells rather than barbells, as sometimes one side will do more work than the other when using a barbell.

Eyes Without a Face

BetterThanThou wrote: »

It's not a full answer to your question, but I've found one thing that helps quite a bit to ensure both sides are getting exercised equally is to do work outs with dumbells rather than barbells, as sometimes one side will do more work than the other when using a barbell.

That's not necessarily what I'm worried about. I would assume that if I'm exercising my triceps(for example), that I would exercise them both equally. What I'm asking is: how do I make sure that I don't exercise my triceps more than my biceps

conzy

Follow a tried and tested program, eat well and always progress. Whether that's more weight or another rep.

You won't "accidentally" get big or out of proportion

rubadub

conzy wrote: »

You won't "accidentally" get big or out of proportion

I don't think he is worried about looking out of proportion, more about being out of proportion ability wise.

I had similar concerns before, like if you had trained some exercise a lot then you might be able to pick up a large sofa, but if you lost your balance for a second you might need some other stabilising muscle to regain your balance, but those new muscles brought into play might be relatively very weak and so you could get an injury.

There was the crossfit exercise standards which show expect relative abilities, but only for a few exercises

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-journal/WLSTANDARDS.pdf

hatrickpatrick

Can definitely happen that major muscles grow faster than their supporting muscles, which is a pain when it means you can't use your full potential weight on the muscle you're targeting because of such imbalances.
This can sometimes be where machines come in handy - for example, my shoulders are a weak spot for me so when I have no spotter I find it almost impossible to do the initial push to get a bar into position for a bench press set, hence if I don't have a spotter on that day I'll use the smith. Handy thing is, at least this lets you know which muscles you need to work more on.

As far as symmetry goes, and I'm sure I'll get some heat for this, this is why I almost always prefer to train with dumbbells where possible as opposed to barbells. With dumbbells, there's no possibility of unconsciously letting one side of a muscle pair take more of the weight. I'm sure there are ways to ensure it even with barbells, I just like the certainty and peace of mind I get when the muscles are effectively lifting two entirely separate weights and therefore can't possible be overcompensating for each other.

thegreatiam

Eyes Without a Face wrote: »

s there any way of knowing if you're exercising certain muscles too much relative to others? I'm sure there are people who go to the gym all the time without the advice of personal trainers, and without realising it, fail to exercise certain muscle groups.

happens everyday in every gym all over the world. people spend hours working pecs and biceps and do very little back and leg exercise.

you can spot them a mile off.

counter it by sticking with a recommended program, work the back and legs as often, if not more often than you do bicep curls and bench press.

Each time you do one push, do 2 pulls.