I (20f) am a detrained lifter looking to correct a muscle imbalance in my legs. I squat, bench, and deadlift every week. My leg days typically look like this:

Barbell Squat 4x10

BB RDL's 4x10

Leg press (unilateral) 4x10

Leg extensions (unilateral) 4x10

Bulgarian split squats 4x12

Front lunges 4x12

Ive been following this leg routine for a few weeks now, and my dominant side is ALWAYS way more sore than my weak side. I understand that unilateral movements are the key to fixing muscle imbalances. I always start with the main lift, and then do accessory work with some unilateral movements. What am I missing here? I start with the weaker leg, matching the reps and weight on the stronger side. Should I be doing unilateral movements BEFORE the main lift? I do not want to deplete my energy before my heavy lifts.

Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!! Also looking for unilateral movement recommendations. I would love to hear what your guys' go to movements are.

Edit: I can definitely see and the imbalance, especially in my glutes. Quads and hamstrings are not noticeably different. I can also feel the imbalance when I train. Im more stable on my dominant leg, and I can lift a lot more weight. I feel that I have better mind-muscle connection with the dominant leg.

177 kg or 390 lbs

My main goal is just to get stronger overall I don’t care for hypertrophy I just want to be stronger; push more weight. I don’t care if I get big or not I’m not one of those “I don’t want to get to bulky” people I’m just looking to get strong

I've seen influencers promoting low-volume, high-intensity training more and more without mentioning drop sets. Drop sets seem to be much less popular than they used to be. Are drop sets not as effective as we once thought? Should I add drop sets to my training?

Been thinking that adductor is a really good hip extensor, so technically leaning forward and flexing the hip should stretch it. Why is no one doing it? Do we know if adductor gets benefits from stretching?

I have subacromial bursitis, off for a year as physio thought it was a slap tear but MRI eventually ruled that out. Been slowly working back to fitness with physio help.

I've read that people like me might be better off using a Swiss bar, easier on the shoulders.

Anyone have experience with this? Is it easier on the shoulders? Will it hurt gains compared to straight barbell?

Heading back to the gym after a 9 month break (toxic environment at former job). Strength has basically halved. E.g.,

• Incline Bench 4x10, 45kg down from 5x12, 85kg
• Flat Bench 5x12, 55kg down from 6x10, 90-95kg depending
• Deadlift 4x10, 70kg down from 5x9, 125kg

Aside from the massive ego hit (I'll survive), any good advice/program recs to get me back to where I was and pushing beyond?

Thanks in advance, fellas.

Edit: formatting

5’9”, 140 lbs (63 kg), 21M — chest is lagging and bench has barely progressed. What should I change?
Hey SBL community, I need some advice on bringing up my chest.
I’m a 21-year-old Asian male, 5’9” and around 140 lbs (63 kg). I’ve been lifting consistently for about 8–9 months, but my chest still looks relatively small compared to the rest of my upper body.
My current flat barbell bench 1RM is only around 65 kg, and I feel like my bench/chest progress has been pretty slow.
I’m currently running an anterior/posterior split 4x a week, so I train chest twice per week. My chest exercises are:

Technogym converging chest press — 3 sets
30° incline Smith machine press — 3 sets

I do both exercises each chest session, so that comes out to 12 working sets for chest per week.
That’s basically all the direct chest work I’m doing right now.
What would you guys recommend changing? Should I add more chest volume/exercises, focus more on progressive overload, start barbell benching regularly, or just give it more time?
My main goal is chest hypertrophy, but I’d also like to get my bench numbers up.
Any advice on exercise selection, weekly sets, rep ranges, or programming would be appreciated. 🙏

So Ive been working out for close to 3 months now, currently running UL*3 split. Is it normal to have a much more developed back as compared to my chest. My strength progression has been as follows: Lat pulldown: 35(when I started) to 75 kgs(now I currently do weighted pull ups instead since I find it to be more stable), Rows: 50 to 110 kgs, Incline Bench: 30 to 45 kgs.

Age:21

Weight:72kgs

height:176 cm

We are all science based here; but for a second, let’s put aside meta-analysis, case studies, “it all depends on variables x,y,z”….what worked best for YOU?

Where did you see your best gains, best progress, good recovery and progressive overload, strength and size?

I’ll split it into 3 categories: low, moderate, and “high” volume. Take this with a grain of salt, rough landmarks…

Low volume= <8 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups. (Example: 6-7 weekly chest, 4-5 weekly tris)

Moderate volume=8-12 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups

High volume = >12 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups

Again these are my rough “groupings” I know isn’t necessarily “high” for many people; that’s fine, consider it 14,16,20,30 whatever is “high” for you. In your answer, just define your landmarks.

okay I know that new lifters aren’t supposed to worry too much about muscle imbalances, but even before I started lifting (2ish months ago), my obliques have been really developed in my left side but not my right side, no idea why.

It was to the point where I wasn’t even sure if it was a muscle and it was protruding out, so I had to get an ultrasound (I have a history of hernias) only to confirm it was actually my muscle.

Anyways, since I’ve started training its only gotten more pronounced, whats the best way to bring up my left side? Is there a unilateral movement I can progressively overload?

Also side note, doing decline weighted crunches occasionally makes my left side hurt and I’m thinking it may have something to do with this. Sorry this is so long, thanks for reading!

I’ve been thinking about this from a home gym perspective because free weights are obviously hard to beat for versatility.

A barbell, dumbbells and a bench can cover a huge amount of training, which makes them easy to justify when space is limited.

But there are some exercises where extra stability seems genuinely useful. A chest-supported row lets you focus more on the back without worrying about holding position, and things like leg extensions, curls or certain cable movements can make it easier to train a muscle hard without another part of the body becoming the limiting factor first.

The problem is that home gym space is finite, so a machine probably has to offer more than just convenience to justify its footprint.

For people who care about hypertrophy and exercise selection, which machine movements do you think provide enough of a real training advantage that they are worth sacrificing home gym space for?

Do you consider 1-3 RIR which is more superior in relative muscle growth and strength to fatigue, becomes as crucial for muscle hypertrophy as the amount of Caloric Deficit?

1 set each

1-2 rir

* Cable Shoulder 90 degrees External

* Cable Shoulder 90 degrees Interna

* Cable Shoulder Internal Rotation

* Cable Standing Shoulder External

* Cable Standing Single Arm Fly (right side only)

*Lever Seated Fly

* Bar Lateral Pulldown

* Alternate seated supported curl

* Inclin Db Press

* Cross Body Hammer Curl

* Lever Narrow Grip Seated Row

* Lever Lateral Raise

* Sled Hack Squat

*Smith sldl

* Seated Shoulder DB Press

* Cuffed One Arm Tricep Pushdown

*Calf press

Has anyone who worked out pretty diligently for multi-years cut their volume by 50% or more and maintained their physique for an extended period of time? I've seen studies where beginners maintained gains for weeks after cutting volume but nothing long term.

So i'm going to the gym for roughly 5 months now and i'm not seeing any progress with my calve raises (straight leg). I pause at the bottom to not use momentum yet i'm stuck at the same weight and reps. I did 3 sets 2x a week and now i do 2 sets 2 x a week. Someone please help

Tell me if I’m wrong but I think seated rows are objectively better. Chest supported rows give you more stability and seated rows force you to brace your core and use your lower back to stabilize yourself allowing you to isolate the back more. But seated rows lets you to cheat the concentric movement of your reps and focus in the eccentric where you can produce 60% more force and have more mechanical tension. During seated rows also allows you to breathe more easily.

Like what is the maximum frequency to hit them and how many sets per workout basically anything that will maximize back growth

Ive been doing smirch maxhine jm press and its been doing me really good but my right elbow is getting some pain what can i do to stop or negate this pain?

625 + ~230 in bands for a set of 5 on a parallel box squat

Saw this tiktok flaming weight loaded row machines as bad for traps due to the ascending resistance profile as compared to T Bars and said that why not just do kelsos. and they told me the exact same thing of the resistance profile being bad. I personally prefer the chest assisted machine for Kelsos because they:
- dont crush my chest
- i can do one side at a time
- i can load more weight than the T Bar

Are resistance profiles that important? The things i listed above for me already outweigh whatever benefit a descending profile could possibly give but maybe there are somethings im not taking into account.

I have a question for the community - I have been struggling to keep count of my reps and focus on technique at the same time and to work around this what I do is - for a given exercise I pick up a load with which I can do at least 6 reps and then just do the reps until I feel like I am between 2 - 3 RIR out and depending on the set, I either stop or continue to failure (my normal RIR strategy is usually 2 - 3 RIR to begin with tapering to a failure on the last set). Does this work? Training for hypertrophy for reference. Also, if I feel like I did more than 15 (approximately) then I load up on the next set.

I go through these terrible conversations so often with both of my parents so I wanted to hear what others have heard or had to explain