If you’ve heard from a personal trainer that you should train for symmetrical muscles but dismissed the idea on the basis that it’s for vain poseurs, think again. The reason bodybuilders look for symmetry in their muscles is that this indicates a well-balanced training programme.

Most of us start out with a side that we favour. If you always train both sides of your body at once, you never redress this balance and you’ll end up with a javelin thrower’s arm on one side and a violinist’s on the other. As well as looking daft, this increases your likelihood of injury as your muscles struggle to equalise loads between the two sides.

One way of tackling this problem is to use unilateral exercises. MF has designed a workout programme that will restore your natural symmetry within four weeks. Once you’ve completed the programme you’ll have a brand new body, as well as some new exercises to add to your favourite workouts. The workouts overleaf hit your upper body, lower body and core on different days, exhausting the muscles on one side before tackling the other. One effect is that while one side of you takes the strain, the other gets a working rest before the next set starts. The only muscle that doesn’t get a break is your heart, so your fitness improves and you burn calories.

Take on some carbohydrate drink or a banana 30 minutes before each workout so that you maintain the intensity. And eat a high-protein meal (20-30g protein) within two hours of working out to supply your body with the building blocks it needs to construct new muscle.

How to do these workouts

Do workouts A, B and C once a week each, leaving at least one day’s rest between them. Warm up by doing five minutes on a cardio machine, then do warm-up sets of press-ups or chin-ups and bodyweight squats to raise your heart rate and fire up your muscles. You’ll do a set of exercises on each side of your body, one straight after the other. You may have to use less weight on one side than the other to begin with, but try to even out the weights after two weeks even if it means doing one rep fewer on the weaker side.