My Delts...

Hi all,
I've been lifting and playing volleyball for several years now. My deltoids are pretty developed but realized while taking pictures the other day that my left deltoid has more mass than my right. I am guessing that this is because I play volleyball and serve/spike with my left arm. When I weight train my delts I hit them pretty hard and they both "seem" like they have the same strength when I perform isolations...


How can I remedy this? Do I train my right delt "harder" on shoulder day? Do I lay off the left delt on shoulder day? I would really like my right delt to catch up because I get tons of compliments on my delts at the gym.

Thanks!

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have you tried serving/spiking with your right arm? Im sure it will feel different but im sure you can adapt.

When you spike/serve, i bet you are using a lot of force. Try applying that same type of force to your right arm/shoulder.

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ORIGINAL: Misanthropy

have you tried serving/spiking with your right arm? Im sure it will feel different but im sure you can adapt.

When you spike/serve, i bet you are using a lot of force. Try applying that same type of force to your right arm/shoulder.

Yes, I am using a lot of force in my swings. Actually, I spike with my right arm too. I'll try to incorporate a right handed serve as well.

Thanks!

It almsot looks like your whole left arm is slightly bigger in mass than your left. I have the opposite problem. Are you dominate in your left hand?

"Try and fail is the manner of losers. Try and learn is the way of the strong." -- Unknown

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ORIGINAL: slayerboy

It almsot looks like your whole left arm is slightly bigger in mass than your left. I have the opposite problem. Are you dominate in your left hand?

Yes, I'm left handed.. I guess this is an all too common problem. Any ideas on how to help remedy this?

Im a natural lefty but when i was in elementary school i was forced to do things righty. Not sure who or why this was done but i am able to do a lot of things with both left and right. Some things im lefty dominant and some im right dominant. My overall measurements are symetrical. So when i play sports or do certain tasks i always try to do them with both sides. Plus it is a great advantage since most people are only lefty or right dominant and it keeps them guessing as to what im going to do while playing sports.

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Any ideas on how to help remedy this?

Not a clue. A personal trainer (gasp!) at my old gym said that I could do more with my left arm and keep the right arm at the same weight. But I proved him wrong. I trained my right the same as my left. I let the left arm catch up to my right. So far they are not equal yet....

But if you say that your strength is pretty identical, then that might not work. Maybe do almost all dumbbell workouts and see if repeated isolation brings out the strength in the left arm a little more and you can use the right arm as a bench mark for how much weight/reps/sets to do to keep your left from growing.

"Try and fail is the manner of losers. Try and learn is the way of the strong." -- Unknown

[image]http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/8302/opensuse2oi.jpg[/image].

There's a couple of things you could try- Different things work for different people, and the thing that really sucks about that is taking the time to figure out what's going to work for you... Of course, from the looks of your pic, you know all about putting time into getting your results, that's some nice work you've been doing.
Anyway, you could try hitting the smaller side more- A couple more sets when you're done with your typcial shoulder routine- Which I'd love to know more about, by the way. Or, you could try giving that shoulder an extra workout during the week, not too heavy of course. Then there's the option of decreasing the amount of work your larger shoulder does, but I don't know if you want to go that route- When it comes to strength/size imbalances for me, I usually try to work the weaker side more. Works pretty well for me.

Awesome advice! I've already started to do an extra "light" workout on the smaller shoulder to try and compensate. I usually train my shoulders once a week. I target the front, side, and the rears to get my shoulders a "3D" look to them. So I end up in the gym for a LONG time. I do mostly dumbell exercises and only go heavy when i military press. This routine has helped my bring out some definition on the delts. Thanks for your advice and hopefully I can post some positive results down the road.