Add Single Leg Exercises To Your Workouts For These Benefits
Dec 2, 2021 by Michael Fouts
You should try to include single leg exercises In your program when you can, for the following reasons:
1. Helps address strength differences
With two-legged exercises you often have a dominant leg that ends up working more than the other leg. Doing single leg exercises can help you recognize this and start strengthening the weaker leg; this can also play a role in injury prevention.
2. Improved Core Stability and Balance
Doing exercises on one leg places a greater demand on your core for stability. Regularly using single leg exercises will help you have greater stability through different planes of movement (side-to-side, front-to-back, rotational), have better balance, and play a preventative role with injuries.
3. Sports Specific Benefit
Whether you’re an athlete, Identify as an athlete (a “has been” like me), or want to train like an athlete, single leg exercises are very important with athletic training for the reasons mentioned above: addressing muscle strength differences, improved core stability and balance, and injury prevention.
Here’s a single leg exercise to try to: Skater Squat
Shown in this clip are different depth variations, using foam blocks (you can use anything) to go to different depths – the farther you go the harder the exercise.
How to do this exercise:
Get some sort of depth target (foam/yoga block, or book) that you can use to work as your stopping point for depth. Also grab a set of dumbbells, 5 – 15 lbs will work, going above 15lbs is not necessary. They are just counterweight and help with balance. Going heavier doesn’t make it harder for your legs, rather it just makes it harder for your shoulders.
Start with shoulder width stance and have your depth target just under your hip – or slightly behind it. Start to descend into the squat while simultaneously raising the dumbbells in front of you (like a dumbbell front raise) with your palms facing each other. Focus on pushing into the floor with your “triangle foot” (big toe, little toe, and heel) as you descend into the squat. When you’ve reached your depth target, forcefully push into the ground with your foot to push back up. Repeat.
Aim for ~6-8 reps per leg, 2-3+ sets per workout. Look to go lower over time as you get stronger.
A few tips:
- Most people do a really poor job of pushing through their heel. Use the dumbbells to help with this to help change your center of mass to allow you to get back further and deeper.
- Those with longer legs, like me, will have to bend their torso more and will likely need to place your depth target further back in your stance.
- Make sure your hips (belt line) and shoulders are parallel and level throughout the movement.