4 Ways to Bring Up a Lagging Muscle

Humans are asymmetrical creatures. We’ve got two lungs and two kidneys, but only one heart, one liver and one pancreas. The two sides of our brain are in charge of totally different things. And most of us can only write, brush our teeth and pick our nose with one hand.

These natural asymmetries inevitably lead to muscular imbalances. It’s a double-edged sword. We’re often good at what we do because of imbalances we’ve developed from getting good at what we do. Take baseball for example. A sport dominated by one-sidedness, hitters battle oblique strains and pitchers shred their rotator cuffs in response to performing some of the most explosive movements in all of sports.

The same applies in the weight room. We gravitate toward what we’re good at, and often times, neglected muscles and movement patterns get left in the dust. Look at the average Joe lifter – the “mirror muscle” guy who only trains what he can see: chest, biceps, maybe some abs here and there. As a result, his triceps and upper back wither away and become pitifully weak. And don’t get me started on his poor legs…

Whether it’s from neglect or stubbornness (we’ve all got a muscle that sometimes just won’t grow no matter how we attack it), try these four tips to bring up a lagging muscle.

1. MORE TIME UNDER TENSION

A muscle won’t grow until you expose it to a stimulus for growth. Sounds simple, right? It’s crazy how this fact gets twisted by so many people.

People have argued for decades about the primary stimulus that sparks muscle growth. But if you’ve read my blog before, you know I firmly believe that the simplest way to add muscle is to get stronger. And that means consistently adding weight to the bar. But you can’t just add weight forever. You stall, you plateau, you piss, you moan, you throw down your Muscle Milk in disgust and take to the internet forums for answers.

Well here’s your answer. If you can’t put more weight on the bar, you have to force the muscle to grow by spending more time under tension with the same (or less) weight. More reps and/or slower reps would be my choices.

More reps isn’t always the key, especially if those reps are lightning fast and you’re relying more on momentum and stretch reflex than the muscles themselves. Slowing down the eccentric or “negative” portion of the rep is probably the best way to increase time under tension and trick a muscle into growing bigger.

Try this the next time you train a weak body part: instead of doing the “positive” and “negative” parts of each rep at the same speed, slow the negative way down. Count for five seconds as you control the weight, then explode back up. So if your hamstrings are weak and you’re doing leg curls, lower the weight/straighten your legs reeeeally slow, then flex as hard and fast as you can to bring the weight back up. You’ll get insane pumps and, if you’re patient, insane growth.

2. MORE FREQUENCY

Some muscles/movements need to be trained every day if you want to see progress. Period.

You’ve heard me say it before: this once-a-weekend body-part split bullshit doesn’t work for most people. Or at least it’s not ideal.

Calves are a good example. Lots of guys struggle to get bigger calves. Why are they so stubborn? Cuz we walk around on them all the time – thousands of contractions a day under the load of our body weight. Good luck getting them to grow by hitting them in the gym once a week.

Some muscles get so imbalanced from our daily routines that you NEED to train them every day if you want to be strong and healthy for years to come. Honestly, everyone should work their upper back, hamstrings and glutes every day. Every time someone improves their thoracic extension or reduces anterior pelvic tilt, an angel gets its wings.

Brandon Lilly, world-class powerlifter and author of the Cube Method, hit his lats every day to help him deadlift 815 pounds. And fellow strength phenom Eric Lilliebridge says he works biceps, traps and shoulders every day because, well, he likes being swole. I appreciate his honesty.

Want to fix your squat pattern? Squat every day. Not necessarily under load, but you have to practice. Have tight hips? Stretch them every day. Want to do more pullups? Do pullups every day. Set up one of those silly doorway pullup bars in your house and bang out a few reps every time you walk by. Grease the groove, rusty.

You can train most muscles hard every 48 hours and some every single day as long as you’re not doing insane amounts of weight or volume. Stimulate, recover, repeat. Give a muscle just enough time to recharge, then attack it again.

3. MORE VARIETY

It’s absolutely true that most good strength training programs are simple. They usually revolve around big, basic exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, pullups and rows. Most people don’t need more than that. But if you’ve got a muscle that’s lagging behind, you might need more variety to get it up to speed.

Simple tweaks like changing the incline angle on a dumbbell bench press, changing your grip on chin-ups or changing your squat stance can help break through a plateau.

Sometimes  you might just need more exercises. I’m not talking “muscle confusion” where you do something different every time you hit the gym. Variety just for the sake of variety is rarely beneficial. I’m talking about adding another exercise to your current plan that compliments the main exercise for a given muscle group. For example, if you want huge legs, squats are king. But you probably won’t develop world class quads unless you’re also doing things like lunges or split squats. If your triceps are weak, you might need to do more than just dips or just pushdowns. Get the idea?

4. GET RID OF THE STUFF THAT DOESN’T MATTER

Sometimes instead of attacking a weak muscle with more, sometimes you have to do less of another exercise that’s feeding the imbalance.

For example, if lots of heavy bench pressing is wrecking your shoulders, instead of countering with lots of rows, band pullaparts and rotator cuff work, maybe you should just bench less.

You don’t need to do flat, incline AND decline bench. You don’t need pullups, lat pulldowns AND dumbbell pullovers. You don’t need shoulder raises in every possible direction or squats with every speciality bar that EliteFTS or Rogue makes.

Before you even THINK about adding things to bring up a weak point, think about what you can take away that will give that muscle a better chance to grow.

SUMMARY

To fix a stubborn muscle, you probably need more time under tension or an extra exercise or two for variety. To master a movement pattern, do it every day. To fix a muscular imbalance, try taking something away before adding something into your program.