Has anyone successfully corrected leg width asymmetry?

Training Advice/Discussion

2 months ago 05/04/2024 7:52pm EDT

I run and lift and my right leg has become stronger and 0.75 inches wider in circumference at the middle than the left, and my right is also stronger than my left. Single leg exercises didn’t help, so I finally saw a PT who just prescribed similar strengthening exercises to the ones I tried but asked me to do them uniformly (same reps and weight) on both legs. I feel some burn with the exercises and do them religiously but don’t understand how it can help my left catch up with my right if I work them equally.

Has anyone successfully corrected width asymmetry and can share your experience?

2 months ago 05/05/2024 11:51am EDT

re: asymov

No such thing as "leg width".

2 months ago 05/12/2024 1:44pm EDT

re: asymov

asymov wrote:
I run and lift and my right leg has become stronger and 0.75 inches wider in circumference at the middle than the left, and my right is also stronger than my left. Single leg exercises didn’t help, so I finally saw a PT who just prescribed similar strengthening exercises to the ones I tried but asked me to do them uniformly (same reps and weight) on both legs. I feel some burn with the exercises and do them religiously but don’t understand how it can help my left catch up with my right if I work them equally.
Has anyone successfully corrected width asymmetry and can share your experience?

Bump. Anyone with a substantive opinions responsive to the question?

2 months ago 05/12/2024 2:06pm EDT

re: asymov.

I haven’t heard of it referred to as “leg width discrepancy” but I get what you’re getting at. My left leg is weaker than my right and has less muscle mass than my right as well and I am working on correcting it. You can’t really tell visually all that well just by looking at both sides, but I can feel the asymmetry, and as I have gotten older I get more and more injuries on the weaker side. I have a very tough time recruiting the muscles the same way on the weaker side, it’s like it’s just been “along for the ride” for years running-wise. I do the prescribed exercises only on the one side, and I suppose once it catches up I’ll go to doing it on both. I’m told a great way to tackle this issue is blood flow restriction training (BFR training) which I’ll be starting next week.

2 months ago 05/12/2024 2:12pm EDT

re: Marshmallow

Marshmallow wrote:
I haven’t heard of it referred to as “leg width discrepancy” but I get what you’re getting at. My left leg is weaker than my right and has less muscle mass than my right as well and I am working on correcting it. You can’t really tell visually all that well just by looking at both sides, but I can feel the asymmetry, and as I have gotten older I get more and more injuries on the weaker side. I have a very tough time recruiting the muscles the same way on the weaker side, it’s like it’s just been “along for the ride” for years running-wise. I do the prescribed exercises only on the one side, and I suppose once it catches up I’ll go to doing it on both. I’m told a great way to tackle this issue is blood flow restriction training (BFR training) which I’ll be starting next week.

BFR training the weaker or stronger?

2 months ago 05/12/2024 2:18pm EDT

re: asymov.

In my experience if you just train same weight, same reps, one leg at a time, isolating muscle groups, the body will autocorrect strength. I do not know if it will autocorrect leg width but presumably so.

2 months ago 05/12/2024 2:21pm EDT

re: asymov

Common to have some girth imbalance and it makes sense that this might be exaggerated after strength training

My guess is some of this is functional so may respond to slight adjustments via heel lift so long ad not overdone (1/4 in might be a good start, the leg w greater width is likely carrying more weight and likely longer which may occur for several reasons pronation a usual suspect)

I would also not avoid single leg work but don’t expect much relatively thought not without benefit in these cases

2 months ago 05/12/2024 3:01pm EDT

re: Marshmallow

Marshmallow wrote:
I haven’t heard of it referred to as “leg width discrepancy” but I get what you’re getting at. My left leg is weaker than my right and has less muscle mass than my right as well and I am working on correcting it. You can’t really tell visually all that well just by looking at both sides, but I can feel the asymmetry, and as I have gotten older I get more and more injuries on the weaker side. I have a very tough time recruiting the muscles the same way on the weaker side, it’s like it’s just been “along for the ride” for years running-wise. I do the prescribed exercises only on the one side, and I suppose once it catches up I’ll go to doing it on both. I’m told a great way to tackle this issue is blood flow restriction training (BFR training) which I’ll be starting next week.

On the weaker side. Basically you use a specialized cuff to restrict the blood flow to the leg as you go through your lifts/exercises, and when the blood is allowed to return to the leg it causes the muscles to hypertrophy more than they ordinarily would, leading to larger strength gains than normal. There is a lot of really interesting research on it.

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