Imbalances

After a period of time in weightlifting, it starts to become clear where the areas of imbalance are in your body. Prior to this, I had some fleeting guesses .. I broke my right leg, so naturally my right calf had atrophied because of that experience. In fact, early on in my transformation, I hit a big problem with calf lifts--I could not lift with any weights at all. Well, I'm now up to 10kg thanks to the last few weeks and being consistent. Along with my right calf, there are other areas of my body I'd like to enumerate and discuss what to do to address these issues.

1. Right calf. Severely atrophied and visibly weaker than my left calf. Due to the leg break, my gait naturally favors my left body. Address by weekly weighted calf raises along with unweighted calf stretches after HIIT.
2. Right mid-back trapezius. This one didn't really come out until after weightlifting. But, I sense it has been there for along while caused by several factors: poor posture, leg break, etc. My mid back at around T4 has had problems for quite some time, even before the break. Address by primarily during Pull exercises: dumbbell rows, reverse dumbbell flyes, and adding in shoulder shrugs.
3. Left tricep. Before lifting weights, I did not know this was a problem. When I first tried tricep extensions, the problem became really obvious. Address by individual tricep extensions instead of doing them together.
4. Right bicep. I did not know this was really there before either. It's only a slight imbalance. Address by individual bicep curls instead of doing them together.

I started this post last night. Today I was able to perform a 15kg calf raise without too much of a problem. In fact, I exceeded most of my drop set goals today for leg exercises. So, I think I will need to up the weights next week.

Seeing A Difference

Over the last week and a half, several people have visibly noticed that I have lost weight. And you know, they're right. I have. Over the past month, I hadn't really checked my weight on the scale until a coworker mentioned that I have lost weight. My focus was on discipline, getting the strength exercises right, and building up strength to perform them with balance.

The balance is coming. When I first started out doing lying dumbbell tricep extensions, I could not get them right. My left arm was terrible. It was ridiculous. Unlike before, I can now power my left arm through 4 sets of 12/10/8/8+ with 15kg.

Bench press and rows are up to 35kg starting out around 20kg two months ago.

With these improvements, there are still several areas where I need to focus on. For example, straight-legged dumbbell deadlift which I covered in a previous post.

It's been about two months since I have started the transformation process. Building strength and endurance. There has been both visible and less visible change during this process. Less weight, more strength, and much more endurance than I have ever had.