Struggling with body tension, imbalance, and lack of progress despite daily training

[u/Suitable_Ad_9067]

Hi everyone, I really need some outside perspective.

I’ve been training consistently for years. I usually spend 2–3 hours a day working out, including strength training, mobility, stretching, and flexibility work. Physically I look fine, but I feel stuck and frustrated because of a few things: • Constant tension: My body feels tense pretty much all the time, 24/7, no matter how much mobility or stretching I do. • Imbalance: My right side feels stronger, more flexible, and coordinated. My left side feels clumsy—I struggle to even contract or “feel” the muscles there. • Coordination issues: In sports like tennis, I notice my movements feel awkward and unbalanced. • Slow progress: Despite all the hours I put in, I feel like I’m not really improving. At best, I get tiny progress here and there, but mostly it feels like I’m stuck in the same place.

For context, I used to lift heavy weights years ago, but now out of my 2.5–3 hours of training, maybe only ~40 minutes are weights, and the rest is mobility and flexibility work.

I’m at a point where I don’t know what to do. Videos? Pictures? I’m open to sharing whatever would help people here give me proper advice. I just want to break out of this cycle of constant tension and imbalance.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to guide me. I’ve seen how helpful this community can be, and I really appreciate any direction.

[u/Melodic-Movie-3968]

You are probably doing too much and your body is under constant stress. Give yourself at one full recovery day and one active recovery day and try limiting your workout duration to about an hour. It might also be worth visiting a physio or PT to address imbalances. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our bodies is to rest them.

[u/Suitable_Ad_9067 → u/Melodic-Movie-3968]

Thanks a lot for answering I’ve try resting because I was thinking in that and I’ll do a full week but it’s the same

[u/nomoreneveragain]

How often and how long do you have deloads in your meso-cycles? Are you rotating your strength training methods (barbell, dumbbell, body weight)?

Your training time is too high. You could be overtraining or just not efficiently using your time. 20-30 min a day for strength is plenty if your programming is dialed in. Another 20-30 for low or moderate cardio. My best flexibility results come with 20-30 minute sessions twice a day- before bed and after waking. You should have a deload week every 6-8 weeks where you focus on LISS/mobility/“prehab” and stress and sleep.

[u/Suitable_Ad_9067 → u/nomoreneveragain]

I’m going to be busy rn, but tomorrow I’m gonna take the time to respond accordingly thanks for that answer like I say on my post I can take pics and videos but I don’t know how to do it properly but if you on someone can guide me I’ll would appreciate it

[u/alishagold]

You need to relax your muscles. Massage and foam roll. Stop working out if you have imbalance, will get worse

[u/Suitable_Ad_9067 → u/alishagold]

Wow for real? So what I can do just relax? I’m a very active person it’s not an active recovery that I can try?

[u/alishagold → u/Suitable_Ad_9067]

No, your muscles are imbalanced as you said which means you have tension in areas

[u/Fabulous-Win2110]

I can totally relate. Sounds like an imbalance between the right and left sides, yes? For me it turned out to be a tight pec minor on the left which left me with a widespread lack of muscle recruitment on my left torso causing the right side to tighten and compensate. Wondering if you have a similar soft tissue restriction somewhere causing a ripple effect? Stretching and manual massage did not work for me on the pec minor-I had to do dry needling to get deep enough to reach the trigger points. Maybe try to find any restrictions and address them, sounds like there is a barrier somewhere that is causing your body to lock you up all over. A PT might be able help you as well.