Resistance Makes a Difference

I’ve done knee circles (see video below left) for years and taught them to many of my students and clients. For me, they feel good and come fairly easily. And even though I’ve occasionally tried them with some resistance, I never added a significant amount of load. So when I tried them again recently when working with Isabelle of Stronger Human, I was quickly reminded how adding load can make visible any imbalances in your body.

I’ve touched on this topic before in a previous post — by adding load or resistance to something, what was originally a smooth movement becomes jerky and less coordinated. But what I did not experience at the time was how this can identify side-to-side imbalances and differences. And boy did I see that here! When you watch the video on the left, you can see that the knee circles on both sides look fairly smooth. There is a brief jerky moment on my left, but I didn’t feel much difference. But in the video on the right, with a band to add a good amount of resistance, the contrast between my right and left knees becomes much more obvious. My right is able to maintain a smooth circular movement, while my left has multiple jerky spots. And I was very aware of this while performing the movement — the left side felt SO much harder to control.

So the next time you think you have good, smooth, coordinated movement on both sides, try adding some load and see what happens. Maybe the movement will become even better (a sign that your body likes load); maybe both sides will get jerky; maybe one side will all of a sudden become much more difficult to move than the other.

Let me know what happens!

**For some reason my camera mirrored me in the video, so my right knee is the one on the right side of the screen/image