Repeatedly doing the same type of activity – whether it’s running, lifting or sitting – can have serious downsides. When you head out for your daily run, with each stride you are strengthening your quadriceps, your hamstrings and your upper calf muscles. The muscles on the sides of your hips, however, aren’t growing much.
If you have one sport you do regularly, like running , biking or tennis, and rarely do anything else, you run the risk of muscle imbalance. Imbalances happen when one muscle is significantly stronger than another. The two muscles can be on opposite sides of a joint or bone, or even across your body.
For example, if a weightlifter overtrains her biceps and ignores her triceps, or an office worker spends 10 hours a day peering at his computer screen, leading to weak shoulder muscles, imbalances can emerge. This can lead to pain, poor posture and even injury. Ann Crowe, a physical therapist in Clayton, Missouri, who works primarily with runners and cyclists, said most of her clients’ foot, knee, hip and back pain can be traced to these imbalances.
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