The Dream Team on Muscle Balance

Each month iVillage poses a different question to our Dream Team of experts. Here's what we asked this month: It seems like one side of my body is stronger than the other. Is that possible?

Jonny Bowden, MA, CN, CNS

It's completely possible, and in your case, it appears to be true. I've seen this a lot, especially in athletes whose sport causes them to use one arm more than the other (basketball, for example). Doesn't much matter why — it can happen for many reasons. If there is a significant difference in size or strength, you can just train the weaker side a bit harder (more weight) to even them up. If the difference is minor, it's probably nothing to worry about. Just chalk it up to individual differences, like having one blue eye and one brown one.

Liz Neporent, MA

Muscle strength is a lot like your checkbook and your diet: All three should, in a perfect world, be balanced. This means that the muscles around a joint should have the proper strength ratio, and your left and right sides should have about the same degree of strength.

Unfortunately, few people have an ideal strength balance. Runners, joggers and walkers, for example, frequently have powerful quadriceps muscles (front of thigh) but relatively weak, tight hamstrings (back of thigh). When they switch to an activity that uses the hamstrings, they may lack the ideal strength ratio, which can set them up for injury. Similarly, people who throw, catch and kick with the muscles on their right side often neglect those on their left.

Being balanced doesn't necessarily mean that you can lift the same amount of weight with, for example, your biceps and triceps (front and back of arms). The ideal strength ratio between opposing muscles varies from person to person, but an average to shoot for is about 60 percent to 40 percent from back to front. So, if you can lift 60 pounds with your quadriceps in a leg extension exercise, you should be able to lift 40 with your hamstrings doing a leg curl exercise. The muscle pairs that benefit most from balancing are the biceps/triceps, glutes/hip flexors, quads/hamstrings, calves/shins, lower back/abdominals and chest/back.

When it comes to left-to-right imbalances, strive for no more than a 10 percent difference between the same muscle on opposite sides. In other words, if you can do a bicep curl with a 12-pound dumbbell on one side, you should be able to hoist at least 10 pounds on the other.