Started lifting in November 2022. I've been noticing my right leg muscles are growing substantially more than the left, from doing squats.

I had broken my left tib and fib when I was 16 (29 years ago) and always sort of took it easy on that leg ever since. I think I'm subconsciously still biasing my lifting based on this.

I wonder, is there anything I can do to improve this? I'd rather be more symmetrical if possible. Not that this is a huge deal, but it's noticeable.

I would speak with a doctor. The human body fights hard to maintain symmetry. There is likely something else going on. If you recently started working out it could fix itself but a doctor would probably want to run some tests.

Ugh. Not the answer I was hoping to get.

See a doctor. I am one. Don’t see me, but go see one.


It could be residual nerve damage from the break is inhibiting activation (and thus growth) of the muscles. Means your right leg will do the lions share of work.

But could be other stuff so go get checked.

Are the length of your femur to tibia/fibula proportional when you compare right to left leg?

How old are you.  Is there a chance you have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis?




https://healthjade.com/juvenile-rheumatoid-arthritis/

DOCTOR

Lots of folks saying doctor. It’s not the worst idea.

Alternatively, have you tried doing isolateral   movements like split squats or lunges to see how the “weak” side responds to stimulus on its own?

Not saying the doctor thing is a bad idea, but maybe do some experimentation.

Now, if one leg is pretty atrophied and the other is jacked, maybe just go straight to the doc lol.

I have a similar problem. Right leg is much smaller than my left, primarily the hamstring but the quad as well.

I'm certain mine is from an ACL repair when I was 30. Surgeon took a tendon from my right hamstring to replace my right ACL. I believe this led to an imbalance in my glutes as well.

I tend to drift to one side when squatting and and when doing split squats, my right glute shoots out while I'm able to stay perfectly straight in the torso on my left side.

I don't know there's too much you can do if but here are some things I've done that helps:

- unilateral exercises, do the weak side first and limit your reps on the strong side to what you did on the weak side
- do one to two extra sets for the week side each exercise
- do a set on the weak, then the strong and then a few more reps back on the weak

I also have some lower back issues on my right side (right where the lumbar meets the glute medias), probably from the weaker hamstring and glutes on that side. So I tend to do a lot of glute work, reverse hypers are amazing for my back and supermans are good as well.

Doctor...ASAP.


It can be any number of things...some of which are very dangerous- Heart failure, blood clot, circulatory problems, diabetic complications...and so on.  Either way, it is not good and you need a doctor right now.

I'm just a chiropractor; but this ^^^. If you aren't having any other symptoms then this is most likely the cause. It never hurts to get a physical and check-up though.

Typically the solution if you're looking for symmetric growth will be more isolateral movements, more volume on the "small side", and some other techniques to induce greater recruitment, activation and therefore tissue damage on the "small side" such as modifying time-under-tension, BFR training (blood flow restriction), etc. Of course some of these techniques would require you to have a clean bill of health anyway before attempting such as BFR so as the others suggested, might as well go get a check-up.

^^^^ This!!!!!!!