Single Leg Movements

We place an emphasis on single leg exercises at the gym. They’re a great functional strength builder, improve stability, and don’t stress our spine as much as heavy squats and deadlifts will with both feet planted. When we look into real life and sports, many of the tasks we do are from one leg. We rarely plant both feet and get ready to perform a movement.

Single leg exercises expose you. They show you where you’re weak and what your bad habit is to work around that weakness. They show us where we’re off from one side to another. Which leg we favor and obviously spend more time on.

The bad news is that we’re not symmetrical. At least not as much as we’d like to think. You’re always going to have a good one leg SLDL side and a not as good side. Reverse lunges will come easy on one leg while the other might make you fight for balance more. Doing movements on one leg, will help even it out. It will teach you how to stabilize, use the correct muscles and notice your poor movement habits. 

It can be easy to mail it in on these important movements because they’re typically not the main event of your workout. Be sure to focus and concentrate on what you’re doing. These single leg exercises won’t get easier without more reps.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach