Embracing Imbalance: Understanding Asymmetries in Pilates
If you’ve recently started a Pilates practice and noticed that one leg feels stronger than the other, your hips don’t seem level, or your balance is all over the place—don’t worry. What you’re experiencing is not only normal, it’s expected. One of the greatest benefits of Pilates is that it reveals imbalances you may not have noticed in your body—and gives you the tools to address them.
Why Imbalances Show Up in the First Place
The human body is not perfectly symmetrical. Most people have a dominant side (often determined by handedness), and over time, daily habits—like how you sit, walk, sleep, or carry a bag—can lead to one side of the body compensating for the other. Add in old injuries, muscle weakness, chronic tightness, and these asymmetries can become more pronounced.
When you begin Pilates, you start to move with more awareness, precision, and control. This level of focused movement can make imbalances more obvious than they’ve ever felt before. While it might be frustrating at first, it’s actually a sign that your body is starting to communicate more clearly.
Common Asymmetries
Stronger Dominant Side - one leg, arm, or side of the torso may feel more capable or coordinated.
Pelvic or Rib Imbalances - you might notice one hip hikes up during exercises or that your ribs flare more on one side.
Core Engagement Differences - it may be easier to connect to your abdominals on one side than the other. When these muscles are underactive, delayed, or not well-connected neurologically, your body finds other ways to create stability—often by overusing the low back muscles.
Balance Issues - standing or kneeling on one leg may feel dramatically harder on one side.
How Pilates Helps Balance the Body
Pilates is uniquely designed to create symmetry through controlled, intentional movement. Rather than racing through exercises, Pilates invites you to slow down, move with awareness, and engage muscles evenly.
Here’s how your practice helps rebalance your body over time:
Unilateral Work - many Pilates exercises isolate one side at a time, which allows you to identify and strengthen the weaker side.
Breath and Core Connection - by consistently connecting breath with movement and engaging the core, you retrain your body to support itself more evenly.
Alignment Cues - Pilates instructors are trained to spot subtle misalignments and will often offer tactile or verbal cues to help you find symmetry.
Mind-Body Awareness - as your proprioception improves, you begin to feel when something is off and self-correct more easily.
These imbalances were likely there long before Pilates— you’re simply becoming aware of them. Over weeks and months, this process helps rewire movement patterns, activate underused muscles, and reduce reliance on dominant muscles.
Tips to Support the Process
Consistency is key. Change takes repetition. While Pilates helps introduce better mechanics, your body will naturally want to revert to old habits, especially under fatigue, stress, or distraction. These original movement patterns are deeply ingrained and they’ve been reinforced by years (or decades) of repetition. So even when you know what better alignment feels like, staying there consistently takes time, practice, and patience. If we continue to fall back into old patterns without correcting them, the body will keep defaulting to what's familiar and easy, not what’s optimal.
Be patient and kind to your body. Progress in Pilates is about subtle refinement, not instant transformation.
Focus on form, not reps. Quality of movement matters far more than quantity.
Communicate with your instructor. If something feels off, share what you’re feeling—they can adjust the exercises to support your imbalances.
Summary
Noticing imbalances in your body after starting Pilates isn’t a sign something is wrong—it’s a sign that something is working! You're developing the body awareness needed to move more intelligently and restoring balance. The more often you practice with awareness, the more your body begins to adopt these healthier patterns automatically. So next time you feel off-center, remember: you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
At The Pilates RX, we believe everyone deserves to move freely and confidently.
Interested in trying Pilates? Learn more here or book a free discovery call with us today to discuss your unique symptoms.
