How To Strengthen Your

Weak Leg:
The causes of having a weaker leg stems can stem
from having an injury, playing a sport that's leg
dominated, or just everyday life. It's important to
address this imbalance in your legs, so that you can
correctly align your hips, knees, and ankles to reduce
your risk of injury. No matter if your right leg is
weaker than your left or vise versa, these easy
strategies can help you to correct it with time.

1. Maintain your full height constantly when

walking. This might sound funny, but by
maintaining the highest height possible when
you walk, you force your lower-body to stay
engaged. Many of us tend to subconsciously
sink one hip as we walk, which reflects the
weakness in that hip. If you are more
conscious about your movements, and
 instead try to press down into your foot to
maintain your height while you walk, you
strengthen your weak leg.

2. Press down harder into the weak leg. In ful

body movements like squats or lunges, many
of us subconsciously place more weight into
our stronger leg, and avoid putting as much
weight into the weak leg. Next time you're
doing full body movements like squats, press
down into your weak leg
3. Watch yourself extremely carefully in a
mirror. Your body has probably developed its
own specific way of moving through certain
exercises, and there's a good chance you
aren't aware of the subtle differences
between what you do and what "perfect"
technique is supposed to be. Most people
don't have perfect technique, but by looking at
yourself in a mirror as you exercise, you can
spot differences between the left and right
sides of your body, and make the adjustments
necessary to move evenly. Here are some

things to look for:

U n e v e n hips - is one hip in front of the

other? Does one hip stay higher than the

other? Notice the movement not just at
end range of motion, but also as you move
from starting point to mid-point.
 Uneven knees this is directly related to
the hips, but does one knee go further
forward, or further back? Look at the
relationship between the knees and the
toes, and compare both legs. Does one
knee track over the middle toe, while
another tracks more to the outside? These
little differences can have a big impact.
One foot in front of the other whichever
foot is in front has LESS weight, while the
foot behind has MORE weight. This is
useful knowledge. If you want to get
stronger with your left leg, set your left
foot an inch or two behind your right foot.
(In a squat, this means taking your normal
stance and then dropping the left foot
back about two inches.)
4. Day to day tasks This is the MOST
important thing to look at, because this is
what you're doing most with your body. Even
though we tend to think of our workouts as
our only "exercise" of the day, we are
constantly doing something with ourbodies
even if that's just sitting. How do you sit
during the day? Think of how you get out of
bed. What side you tend to stand on when
you're waiting in line? Do you turn to the left
or the right more often? All of these habits
can be examined and given the proper
 adjustments to promote equal use of the right
and left sides of the body.

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