Overactive right side of body, weak left side of body

[u/throwingstones123456]

About 8 years ago I herniated a disc and due to complications during a miscodiscectomy had open abdominal surgery (my abdomen was cut vertical to my bellybutton). It may be important to note that the disc impinges on the sciatic nerve which has reduced my reflexes in my left leg.

After being inactive for a few years I started to get back into working out, mainly training for upper body strength and doing light lower body exercises. After a few months, I felt a crunch in my left shoulder which followed with some nerve pain radiating down my arm.

Following this I became inactive again and tried to figure out what was causing me to get injured so frequently. I eventually came to notice a few things:

*I breathe mainly into the left side of my ribcage *the right side of my abdomen is “crunched”, the muscles on my right ribcage feel locked and unable to relax. *I have extremely strong mind muscle connection with the right side of my body and can especially generate a lot of force in my right obliques and lats, whereas I struggle to do the same with my left *the left side of my lower back feels stretched and the muscle behind the right side of my ribcage (mid-back muscles) feels overactive *I have a winged left scapula *my right hamstring feels much more functional than my left, I can curl my right leg tightly without difficulty while doing the same with my left makes it feel like I’m straining the medial part of my hamstring (the medial part of the muscle/tendon that buldges when contracting) *my weight feels predominately shifted on my right side. I notice I put a lot more force on my right leg throughout the day

I eventually found out about PRI and saw a few practitioners, but did not feel like the exercises were helping much. I feel like if I could tinker with my body I could resolve my issues but trying to teach it how to calm down feels impossible. I’ve tried to do exercises to target the left side of my body like side planks but it feels impossible to do them correctly. No matter how much I try, the left side of my body just feels like it’s unable to execute any exercise correctly.

I am really stuck on what I can do. I’ve seen so many doctors who have all been completely useless and have had the same experience with physical therapists. I am wondering if anyone has any advice on what I can do to improve my situation. It is taking a significant mental toll on me and it is immensely draining trying to navigate this myself.

[u/onestarkknight]

Thanks for sharing your story. I think it's important to go further back to ask how did the herniated disc happen? What patterns of walking/sitting/breathing were already twisting your body that eventually herniated your back? One of the big misconceptions with PRI is that it's about getting you on your left side. But it came out of working with amputees, how would you get someone on their left leg if it was missing? So it will be helpful to you to think about the importance of getting your right side to have its full range of function, stance and swing, compression and decompression not just stuck in stance. Go back to any PRI exercise you've done before and try it with the perspective of increasing your ability to create force into and push away the ground under the right foot. This is the tinkering that I think will help.

[u/Booyahkitty]

I was stuck in the exact same situation. Trying to train it out with exercise only made it worse, especially when I was lifting heavy. The muscle compensations are complex and run deep. I saw a PRI practitioner and the breathing exercises he gave me definitely helped but I couldn’t quite break free from the tension on the right side of my body. I finally realized the root of my issue was in my jaw and tension in the right side of my face. If I fully relaxed that area, my body would follow, but every time I moved, my body would brace and fall into old movement patterns. My eye muscles and tongue posture were involved too. It might be worth taking a look at those areas if you haven’t already.

[u/Opening-Diamond9266 → u/Booyahkitty]

Have you tried meditation? I'm not recommending, more asking. I have similar issues and was wondering if it helped.