What exactly is a muscle imbalance?
Try this analogy: You’re driving your car down the road and your front end is out of alignment. This is going to cause your tires to wear unevenly. This can also happen to your muscles. To take this a bit further, let’s do something we call the Glute Squeeze Test (Do not attempt this if you’ve had a total hip replacement). Stand up and put your heels together, with your toes pointing out – like a duck (at least at a 90 degree angle). Now, clench your butt muscles. Reach back and feel how tight they are. Relax. Next, turn your toes inward as far as you can. Now, with your toes touching, try to tighten your butt muscles. You can’t tighten them nearly as much, can you? The reason is that your muscles are in an unfamiliar position – they’re simply not used to working this way, so they’re not as strong. This should give you some idea of what a muscle imbalance is like. If you correct the imbalance, the condition that’s causing the pain will go away. The good news is that it’s easy to find o
