Unbalanced Squats and dominant right leg.

[WarBringer]

Hey guys.

when I squat I always struggle to get balanced and feel like I have the weight evenly distributed across both legs. And my right leg is dominant and takes most the weight when I squat and is a lot stronger then my left. Does any one know what could fix this, is it tight hip flexors. Because I can barely squat any weight, I struggle with a 20kg plate on each side. And also I feel like I twist at the bottom of my squat and don't drop straight down.  Also I can barely tense my left calf, it's getting better because ik training the shit out of them but still a lot less defined then my right, it's like my wholw

left side is weaker.

Thanks a lot in advance! 

Ben

[hamdanz]

Yeah you probably have a muscle imbalance.  Do exercises to isolate your gluteus medius, those are often not activating properly on one side.  Hip flexor stretches will also probably help as almost everybody has tight hip flexors.  Do you get any lower back pain?

[WarBringer]

Okay mate @hamdanz , so when you say excercises to isolate my glutes. Do you mean just do my weak left side? And what are some good isolation exercises? Yeah actually  I get lower back pain a lot! And recently I've been getting it just on my right side, it feels like a bone but could be muscle, so I'm actually booked in with a physio this week to sort that out, ive been to an osteopath but that didn't help.

[WarBringer]

Also somtimes when I lift my right leg,my lower right back clicks, it doesn't hurt it's just uncomfortable and doesn't feel good at all haha. If the physio doesn't help, with the lower back il go to a chiropractor. I sure all of this is happening because of one thing. Like right hip flexors or the muscle imbalance. I'm going to talk to the physio about my squatting and unbalance.

[hamdanz]

Lower back pain is often correlated with posterior chain imbalances.  Tight hamstrings,  glutes not activating, weak abdominals etc.

 

Hip flexor and piriformis stretching,nd abduction/external rotation of the hips will help engage the glutes.

 

Just do a bunch of research around exercises for these muscle groups.  YouTube is your friend. 

 

But yeah, the physio should be able to pinpoint exactly where your imbalances / tightness are, and give appropriate exercises. 

[WarBringer]

Awesome Man, thanks so much for your help! Really appreciate it!

[urbano]

As part of rehab from an operation/injury  I had to do bodyweight squats on the injured leg.  Not pistol squats but rather just squatting down on the single leg (other leg goes out behind you). Over time I got better at it , but doing that combined with hamstring exercises made a difference to my squatting in that I had a better descent. Prior to that I sometimes had uneven hips or an uneven descent.

 

 

tldr; as posted above glute work helps alot