 trying to build symmetry in your body. Listen to this. Our next caller is Austin from Utah. What's up, Austin? How can we help you? Hey, uh, first off, I've been listening to your podcast for just a few months. I probably listened to an episode a day. I love you guys. I'm grateful for all the information you give. And thank you. Um, my question is, uh, about three years ago, I snapped my leg in a half and a side by side accident. Uh, it was a tib fib compound fracture and the first surgery actually yielded little to no bone growth. Um, so I went in for a second surgery, meaning that I was basically sedentary on my right leg for almost a year. Uh, I recently got back into lifting heavy again about a year ago and I just got my body composition tested with an in-body scanner. I don't know how super accurate that is, but it said that my right leg, the one that I broke actually has four pounds more muscle than my left leg. Um, and I'm kind of wondering if this is something that's just like over compensation initially from the, the surgery, or if it's something that I need to worry about and train specifically to fix. Okay. No, that's a good, that's a good question. That's kind of weird. The broken one has more broken. That's according to in-body scan. Yeah. Let me ask you a couple more questions. How is your circulation in the leg that was broken? Does it feel, you got good circulation? Is there any swelling, anything like that? Uh, no, it feels, it feels pretty much normal. Um, the only thing that's different is I think it's my fibula, the one at the bone at the back, it never actually connected. Oh, okay. So like the doctor says it's not a big problem. I don't feel it, but you know, okay. Now the, okay. So when we're talking about the difference in muscle, he's saying right now, and he, it's the one that was broken three years ago. The one that was broken has four pounds more muscle muscle. That's not uncommon at all. So what's actually very common is what happens is when we rehab, uh, and this has happened, they've actually done studies to show this. Like a lot of times what ends up happening is people end up because they're so focused on rehabbing, they've never been that connected to that limb before and they end up building more muscle on that. Well, so here's, it comes back sometime stronger. Yeah, but I need more, we need more info, Austin, because I wouldn't rely entirely on an in body scan. Are you stronger? Exactly. Are you more stable now? Like, what's the difference between both sides that you know is personal? Yes. Is the right leg stronger than the left leg? Does it feel more stable? Does it feel more explosive? Uh, yes. I think I can genuinely, generally feel a little bit stronger in my right leg. Um, it's, it's not a big difference. And it is my dominant leg. So I, I don't know. That's also, okay. Well, okay. So nonetheless, uh, regardless of which leg was more muscular or stronger, I would put you, I would have you do unilateral training almost entirely all day. Yeah. For, for like a year. And what I would have you do is start your workout or your exercise with the weaker legs. So don't worry about right leg, left leg, whichever leg is weaker, start your set with that leg and then match that rep range and that weight with the stronger legs. In other words, you may be doing less than, you know, than optimal for the stronger leg because you're trying to get the weaker leg to catch up. And that'll take, that'll happen very quickly. And then I would stick to unilateral training for a while, six months, maybe a year, and then reintroduce bilateral. Otherwise you're going to be running into asymmetry and there's going to be, you know, like things, compensations and things that you're going to have to account for down the road up the kinetic chain. So it's just better to really focus on that now while you have the opportunity to really bring them both up to speed. Yeah. So here's some good exercises. Okay. You could do a single leg step ups. You could do lunges, although lunges are still kind of bilateral. They're, they're split stance. So it's more, it's kind of got that unilateral sense. You could do Bulgarian split stand squats and then driving the sled. I, if I were you, I would do some sled driving most days. So regardless, if you're working upper body or different, different body parts, a couple sets, two or three sets of driving a sled across some grass or across some pavement, because it's really, really good for function. It'll help balance out your body and you should be able to notice a difference. But all the training I would do if I were you would be unilateral at this point. Yeah. I don't have much to add to that. I might add a stability component to like my hips and stuff. So I like single leg toe touch added to that. And then maybe single leg leg press. But I, what I do want to tell you is that it's actually not as uncommon as you think, may think this happened to me. So when I tore my- Was it because you weren't training both legs and then you rehabbed one? Well, you're just hyper focused on that. No, that's so my dominant leg used to always be my right leg. I tore my ACL and MSL in my, in my left knee. But when I rehabbed, I was so focused on rehabbing that left side that it actually, so, and before that I was a lot of, I was doing a lot of, you know, bilateral stuff. I wasn't doing a lot of unilateral stuff. But when I was rehabbing, I was doing a lot of unilateral stuff. I had to really focus on that one side. So what I attributed to was in the past, when I would squat or do leg press or these exercises for my legs, my dominant leg would carry muscle load. But then when I had to rehab, I was doing a lot of unilateral stuff. I had to focus on rehabbing that leg, got really good and connected to it. And then when I went back to doing bilateral stuff, that leg was now becoming my dominant leg. Yeah. And I just had never put enough emphasis on the weaker side of unilateral training. And so now that my, my surgery side is my dominant, stronger side. It's really interesting that that happened. But I remember during that time trying to piece it together myself. And I remember reading articles around put this being common because someone gets hurt and especially athletes because it's so focused. Yes, because you're so focused on rehabbing that it's that that single-legged never got that single-legged. I was doing balancing stuff or, you know, very beginning, you're doing a lot of stability, balance, a lot of mind-muscle connection stuff to that, that injury side. And I just didn't ever give that attention to the weaker leg before. And then that carried over into my training when I got back. So One other thing, Austin, I'm not a doctor, but if, but you said your fibia never fully connected? Oh, yeah. Okay, I would, I would get another opinion. It just doesn't, that doesn't sound right to me that that's okay. Now, maybe it's being communicated wrong, or maybe I obviously I don't know the whole picture. Again, I'm not a doctor. But if I had a bone that didn't reconnect, I would be a little concerned. Yeah, I'd want to go get another opinion and say, Okay, what's the deal here? Because I've had clients with a torn ACL and the doctor is like, It's no big deal, because you don't play sports, you don't really need an ACL. I don't think that's optimal. Let's get that read. So yeah, I would get a second opinion just to see what's going on. And do you have maps prime pro? Because I think that'll really benefit you. I don't. Alright, we'll send that over to you, Austin. Oh, thank you so much. No problem. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, what you're saying makes sense. Because it's like you, you put hyper focus on rehab, and you're not doing anything for the strong leg, because you're not you're thinking, Oh, it's okay. Right. And then you surpass whatever before. But you know, with unilateral training, it's really remarkable how quickly you start to balance things out and get stronger within a few months, you start to really get good. I remember watching Paul check. So he's a good friend of ours, right? The wellness guru. And he's an older gentleman, he's got to be almost 60 now. Very strong, very muscular. This guy's a phenom. And I remember watching him do walking lunges. And Paul loves unilateral exercises. He does tons of unilateral exercises for his lower body. This guy was doing and you're talking about a body weight of 160 pounds under St. Lean, right? Walking lunges was 275, which is insane. Yeah, because he got good at him because he always did unilateral training. So you can get really, really strong with unilateral training and really develop good symmetry and balance. Well, there's there's a lot of coaches actually there's camps here that it's Mike Boyle who's famous for this right who's like, what doesn't do anything bilateral everything is you know, because we walk and run when you think about it walking and running is unilateral. It's not bilateral. So if if we walk and run like that, why wouldn't we train our bodies that way? So they make a good case for there's value in both there is I can definitely see more value in unilateral training for athletes for sure though. Yeah, for sure. I see there's a lot of value but general strength and power, especially if I'm training a newer athlete. I know we're kind of going off on a tangent, but I think this is a great topic. If I'm training a younger athlete, and I'm trying to build general strength, then I'll do more maybe bilateral stuff unless there's some imbalances as they get more advanced. Then I think it makes more sense to go more specific unilateral type stuff, you know, because there's more carry over in that you got to build that foundational base. Yeah. And then yeah, and then the unilateral really makes sense from there for them to be able to stabilize properly and generate force in a split stance position.