Asymmetrical Hypertrophy

[Guest guest]

Hi folks,

I have a very simple and basic recurring issue, and I was wondering if all

of you could help me address it once and for all: throughout the course of

the past 14 years of weight training I've noticed that my right pectoral

muscle tends to show better development than my left, and sometimes the

difference is enough to be embarassing. It's true that when maxing out on

the flat bench, my left hand is the first to encounter problems making it

all the way up, but this doesn't make much sense to me, since I'm

left-handed.

In the past I've tried a number of tricks to try and counteract this

problem, mostly applied during flat bench press: in college I got very good

results by using one of the thick weighted safety clips (I'd guess them to

weight about 2 - 2.5 pounds) on the left end of the bar and a regular,

non-weighted clip on the right, but now that I know a bit more about

weightlifting, this seems like an absolutely wrong, if not dangerous, way of

going about things. I've also tried shifting my grip by about two

centimeters so that the right hand is closer to the weight, thereby forcing

my left to wield more of the bar, but again, my thinking now is that I

should be trying to promote better symmetry in my form, not trying to

introduce solutions that make me even more warped.

I've also tried restricting my bench press and other pectoral exercises to

dumbells only, but it seems like such a shame to abandon the larger, more

growth-hormone inducing compound exercises. All of which has left me with

no better solution than to concentrate more on my form, to take the

exercises more slowly and carefully, and to lengthen my eccentric phase, all

of which has been very positive for my workouts in general, but has not been

very successful in making my chest more symmetrical.

Any tricks, thoughts, techniques, exercises or advice as to how to correct

this simple but annoying problem?

Thanks,

Mick Swiney

Prague, Czech Republic