Q: I began working out about 4 months ago. Recently, I started finally seeing some appreciable results. My arms are getting tones, my legs are starting to take some real shape, and my overall symmetry has improved. I just noticed though that one arm seems more toned than the other. I guess I notice it because it’s just in the beginning of my body’s alterations. Clearly, my right triceps is bigger than my left. I know it’s normal to have one arm more dominant, but this is not my dominant arm. How can I even things out?
A: The truth about training, particularly as you say in the beginning of your body’s progression toward change, is that things will even up as you go along. But always, you’ll have discrepancies in your body’s progress and physical circumference and shape of parts of the body opposing each other. If you’ve ever seen a young horse or dog, their growth and development physically is in see-saw fashion. The front of the body grows taller, then the back of the body grows taller than the front and so on, until it finally evens up. It’s the same as our bodies.. Triceps development, deltoid development, pectoral development all happen in unsymmetrical fashion. Believe that. Just because you see a competitive bodybuilder who looks like a million bucks and appears to look even from top to bottom and side to side, even he has imbalances in his physique. One bit of advice we can give you is to try to ascertain whether you are somehow holding back on one side of your body, perhaps using more trap to lift a weight on your right side than left, leaning without realizing it, or just putting more effort into the other side. If this isn’t the case, then try to do a few one-armed exercises for both sides, and just go a little heavier on your weaker side. Other than that, be patient and realize you’ll always have something off kilter.