My right side is taller than my left, especially when doing a plank. It’s obvious. Any advice on how to fix that?

Question

Dr. Mitchell Tanner, PT, DPT, CSCS · Answer

Question says, my right side is taller than my left, especially when doing a plank. It's obvious. Any advice on how to fix that? So whenever you say taller, I'm not sure if that means like your shoulder is higher on one side or your hip is higher on one side, like in standing too, or if you mean like in a plank, you're tilted one way or the other. And regardless of the scenario, I think a bigger question is, is this discrepancy in symmetry causing you pain, or is it inhibiting your performance? Because if it's not painful, and it's not limiting your performance in your sport, then is it really something that you need to fix? Ultimately, it is more common to have asymmetries in the body than it is to be perfectly symmetrical. So not being the exact same on one side versus the other isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes problematic when you have pain or you feel like it's limiting your ability to perform. And so if neither of those things are true, you might be okay to just continue working and progressing at your sport. But if it is causing you pain, it might be worth looking into, maybe doing some exercises on one side of the body at a time. Unilateral movements can be helpful when there are asymmetries present, but ultimately it's not always something that you have to fix.

Dr. Brian Cunningham · Answer

My right side is taller than the left, especially when doing planks. How do I fix it, Marie? I'm going to assume that when you talk about right side being taller, you have a twist or asymmetry in your plank. And it necessarily is not a bad thing. Only if you are having problems with planking or if you're having any pain or dysfunction, it looks like that you may be a swimmer from your pitcher. So you may be able to identify if your right side, you're pulling more to one side or something like that. If that's the case, you probably need to get your coach or a strength and conditioning or a swim specialist. PT to take a look at you, you can also maybe have a slight scoliosis or twist in your spine and that may be the reason why that's happening. So there may be many different ways to correct this. As I said, I think if you're having pain or difficulty performing activities because of this asymmetry, you might want to start even just doing some side planks on one side to the other and seeing the difference also doing some half kneeling one ft in front of the other and looking to see where your symmetry is and maybe in front of a mirror, doing some stuff where.

Lalo Vera · Answer

I don't know if you mean taller than your left like at your hips, like one leg is longer than the other type of question, or if one arm is longer than the other, I don't know what's taller. I don't know if you have a hike up on the shoulder or a hip hike on one side. So I think the best way that you can try and fix that, if you're trying to fix that, I wouldn't say fix, but you can try to correct over time, would be doing more unilateral work than bilateral symmetrical work. So for example, doing a single handed something or a single foot something like lunges would be better than squatting, for example, that'd be very beneficial to start working on that. So there you go.

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"My right side is taller than my left, especially when doing a plank. It’s obvious. Any advice on how to fix that?"