symmetry question

i have always been quite assymetrical.. right shoulder is way broader and right arm gets bigger way easier than the left.. i went to a chiropractor 3 weeks ago who showed me my spine is all crooked and my 'subluxations'... i got on 2 scales and saw i had a 6 lb weigh difference between sides!!

i get some pain in my right shoulder and right upper back as well. im pretty damn certain there is a different in quad size as well.

can a chiropractor really help remedy this by adjusting my spine? im going to see an orthopedist tomorrow.. do u think he could help?

what else is there? am i bound to be an asymmetrical freak forever?

TIA!!!!! Adam!!

'Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.' - Dr. Hannibal Lecter MD

Oh wow.. that sounds just like me. I'm not that bad however, because I focus on my weaker sides during workouts. One side of my chest always feels more burn and takes more of the weight, same with abs. I have a feeling it's in my spine and shoulders. When I look in the mirror and move my shoulders, I can see a definite difference in the shape of the bones in my shoulder. I've been meaning to go to a chiropractor too. I've been like this as long as I can remember exercising, doing crunches in middle school.

How do you look in the mirror? I'm not too bad except from an angle, I notice my chest is assymetrical. I've never fully developed a 6 pack because one side always starts burning first and I don't want to continue so that it gets more uneven.

it is quite noticable... maybe more so to me, however. part of me thinks i might see a change from going to the chiropractor, but im not sure yet.. i am gonna start taking pictures to note any differences.. if u send me an email or something i can send them so u can see any change for yourself. i suppose because of the curvature in my spine, my arms hanging differently, my muscle have diferent leverage and therefore develop differently.. when i used to have about 10-15 lbs more muscle it was a little less noticable.. it definitely affects my balance as well.

ive been doing a lot of dumbbells excersies and using machines that allow even distribution of weight on my left and right sides. my right arm is still plenty bigger than the left one though.. but they lift the same... its gotta be the angles and leverage.

anyone think anything different?

thanks!!! Adam

'Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.' - Dr. Hannibal Lecter MD

This is a classic bad-chiro scam (both the subluxation nonsense and the scale trick). A good chiro wouldn't hand you this crap. People aren't symmetrical, by and large, yet manage to muddle along in life, occasionally setting world records along the way.

Do you use a mouse with your right hand? This is a now-classic source of right shoulder pain.

No.

He might be smart enough to tell you not to bother with the chiro.

Possibly.

the way.

Well put!

Last time I went to a chiropractor I was young and uninformed. He told me about all the ailments which could be cured by ad- justing the spine. I responded by asking whether any such ail- ments could be /induced/ in test subjects by spinal manipulations, thereby lending support to their hypothesis of a manipulative cure.

His response suggested that I was dealing with /faith/, not science. There may be helpful elements to chiropractic ART, like massage therapy, but as a science it has pretty lousy underpinnings.

Standing on TWO scales? I have to stand JUST SO on my ONE half-assed scale to get a consistent result. Weighing each half of the body would be a real scientific challenge, short of dissection, which most would find a bit invasive.

As for human asymmetry, start with the face. Take a frontal photo of your face and with a mirror or Photoshop see what you look like as one face made from two left or right sides (one flipped laterally, of course). Jekyll and Hyde for many of us. Most of us are rather lopsided in face, skeleton, and mus- culature.

Response to symmetry is apparently one of our innate human markers for 'beauty.' The original poster is not the freak... Steve Reeves was a freak, albeit a beautiful one. Lots of bodybuilders pay lots of attention to symmetry, so obviously symmetricalization (isn't there a less pretentious-sounding word for this?) is possible, within limits.

[...]

<snip> Maybe 'balancing'.

'Equalization' also works.

'...so achieving symmetry is possible, within limits' would be a good choice.

-Robert 'Rewrite' Dorf

Yep, yep and yep yet again. I was suffering from an season-change-induced bout of fibrofog and it was just easier to whine than think. Sigh.

You can be my editor anytime!

Tom 'Stripped Gears' Servo