Left and Right Side Not Equal

Hello everyone
Greetings from India
Hope everyone is safe from COVID

I had a stroke in 2010, left side paralyzed. I have been working out pretty hard (to the best of my ability)
I am at my strongest (35 years old, 108 kg, fat, maybe 20% but strong, ohp 80kgx 5, squats 190x2/3 , presently doing Hungarian oak leg blast by CT ,did 7minutes yesterday, , d/l 200 x 1 , 3reps on trap bar)

Anyway, i have been noticing my left thigh and calf and 2" and 1" smaller than the right respectively.

Calves 16/17& thighs 26/28 inches

I am trying to lose fat at the moment. Hopefully get down to 97/98 kg , I look good at that weight.

Need advice from better minds:-

  1. Should I continue my attempt to only lose fat right now, or start concentrating on my weaker side right away?

  2. How to go about while concentrating on my weak side? Stop /reduce working in the right or just pre exhaust the left side a lot?

P.s. going to complete 17 years lifting in March, done 7-8 cycles in total, but not comfortable using a.t.m. nothing about ethics, just never been able to lose fat while “on” , and concerned about reaction with vaccine

-nitin

This depends entirely on you, many people are lopsided anyways. I also don’t see a reason to wait for one vs the other; you probably won’t build muscle while in a deficit, but getting the muscle stronger and recruiting more motor units (mind-muscle connection) couldn’t hurt.
I wouldn’t stop work on your dominant side. Are your legs similar in strength when doing unilateral exercises?

No, not really.
I manage to do sideways step ups with the weak side but it doesn’t look as good, and I have always (post stroke) felt that I unable to flex my left side as hard as the right

The thing about ‘why bother’ is exactly what I wanted to ask. I’m not planning to go to a competition, so is it really a problem? As in could it start hurting, posture/imbalance etc wise few years down the line?

This is going to come from the loss of mind-muscle connection with the side injured (not sure if this is the proper term) in a stroke. some efforts can be made to correct it, but the other side will likely remain dominant.

Potentially, I think this would be the case if the impaired side is much weaker than the other, but if this isn’t the case - I don’t see that it would be a huge problem. Keeping posture in mind certainly couldn’t hurt though

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