Lateral low-ab imbalance

[Jake]

Guys,

I've noticed that the lower right side of my RA (the "penis lines" if you're from MH) is substantially more developed than the left side. I think this is a biproduct of a nagging knee injury from last year--the knee pain caused me to cross my left foot over my right foot when doing hanging leg raises, etc. so my right leg could support the left. Consequently, the right leg/and hip flexors and RA were doing more work So, I have three questions:

1. Am I probably right about the cause of the imbalance, and/or is it indicative of other structural problems?

2. What's the best way to correct it? Should I just do a few sets of left-leg only raises after my ab workouts?

3. From an anatomy curiosity standpoint, if the RA is 1 big muscle, how is it possible to prefentially develop a specific region of it? Isn't this comprable to focusing on the "inner" pecs?

Anyway, thanks for any advice!
Jake

[Jake]

bump

[Jean-Paul]

Hm. Sounds like its your obliques, and not your rectus abdominus that has the imbalance. Don't know if it is possible for that to come about from a knee injury, but I am not really qualified to say though. Can you get a photo up?

[Bill Hartman]

Jake,

No one is symmetrical.

Is it possible that you compensated for a knee injury? Yes. Is that the cause of more hypertrophy on one side? Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. Not all things are known.

I suppose you could treat the other side as you did when your knee was injured and find out although that seems a tad extreme.

I would think it would have more to do with how you sit, stand, and perform ground based activities OR that's how you're made. Don't sweat it.

The abdominals tend to be recruited on a gradiated basis meaning they are recruited as needed. I've read research shows that depending on the activity only parts of the external obliques, for example, will activitate to participate in a movement. However, it's not as cut and dry as upper, lower, etc. It also depends on the demand of the activity as all motor units in a muscle don't fire for every movement.

Bill

[Jake]

Alright, I won't sweat it--Thanks for the input! Much appreciated.

Jake