What unilateral training really means, addressing muscle imbalances.
What do one-legged extensions and bulgarian split-legged squats have in common? Technically, they can both be called unilateral training. This is an underrated and very beneficial exercise that works one side of the body at a time.
Unilateral training is one of the most overlooked forms of training, but it is so important,it can build a more toned body, but it can also help prevent injury and give you the extra strength you need to break through bottlenecks and improve stability and core strength.
But what exactly is unilateral training and why is it so effective? Here, some advice is shared on unilateral training and how to add it to your workout programme.
What is unilateral training?
Any workout involves isolating and using the muscles on one side of the body at a time, rather than spreading the workout evenly on both sides as in traditional bilateral training. This is what unilateral training is.
As an example, the pistol squat (also called the single leg squat) requires keeping one leg up in the air and then squatting to the floor using the strength of standing on one leg. This is typical of unilateral training.
On the other hand, the basic unassisted squat or barbell squat is a bilateral movement that acts on both sides at the same time, and this is the difference.
Why is unilateral training so important?
Raise your hand if you have a significantly different side of your body. Everyone has a stronger and slightly weaker side of their body, and whichever arm you lift is probably your weaker side.
One side of our body is naturally stronger than the other. For example, if you write with your right hand, your left arm will be weaker; if you always take your first step with your right leg, your left leg will be weaker.
This imbalance in strength is even more pronounced in athletes. For example, if you are a runner, the leg you use to accelerate is stronger than the other leg. However, if you are a pitcher or tennis player, the muscles in your arm that you use to throw or serve the ball will be more developed.
Yes, this happens naturally, but the problem is that muscular asymmetry is not ideal. From right to left, from one side to the other, imbalances in the body are bound to happen, but you want the musculature on both sides of the body to be evenly strong and flexible.
If you feel a significant imbalance?
There are two scenarios. Firstly, the stronger side will overcompensate for the other side, further widening the strength gap between the two sides. Usually, in bilateral exercises such as bench presses, push presses, hard pulls or barbell squats, the stronger side will do slightly more than 50% of the exertion, and if you ever squat heavy and have more pain on one side than the other, it's because that side is probably doing more of the work. Basically, the dominant side makes up for the disadvantage. This creates a bigger gap on the weaker side.
The second possibility is that the stronger side is not overcompensating and, instead, the different muscles on the weaker side are getting borrowed to help complete the movement. As an example, let's use a very heavy bench press: It works mainly the chest and triceps, with the shoulders and back as secondary muscles. If at the end of the movement, one side is lagging or even lagging behind if only a little, the body on the weaker side may recruit more of your shoulder or back muscles to fire.
Unfortunately, the potential consequences of an imbalance are significant. The muscles on the stronger side can be injured by overuse. The joints and muscles on the weaker side of the body are more likely to be injured.
Unilateral training has another important benefit:Strengthening the core. In order for you to remain stable while performing these single limb movements, your torso must be overloaded. Any time you let one side of your body carry the weight, it will work to strengthen the core. A strong core has tons of benefits that are not overly explained here, we all know that.
Testing for muscle imbalance
Again, almost everyone has some degree of muscle imbalance, albeit due to exercise or life. If you are really concerned about an imbalance, you can consult a trainer or physiotherapist for an assessment. Here is a basic way to determine your level of imbalance and to understand how much you can benefit from unilateral training.
Let's say you can bench press 50kg. You may think that in theory you should be able to push half the weight with each left arm and half with each right arm, but this is not usually the case. You need a lot of stabilising muscles to move the body weight to one side and only one arm at a time to work with, not two. Most people will mobilise more muscles to fire when doing unilateral.
So, how do you test for muscle imbalance? Test each side separately. Try a single leg exercise and slowly add weight to see which side is stronger. Try this single-leg hard pull test, for example:
Start with an empty barbell or a relatively light dumbbell and do three sets on each side.
If all the movements on both sides are done well, the weight goes up.
Then,repeat. Continue to increase the weight until one side can no longer be weighted.
More likely, you can use heavier weights on one side than the other. Don't be surprised if the weight is lower than you expected. Hard pulls on one leg are more challenging than hard pulls with both feet on the ground because of the need to maintain balance. This is also true of many unilateral exercises such as hard pulls, lunges and steppers.
The goal here is not necessarily the weight, but to see if you have equal strength on both sides of your body. If you don't strength train regularly, you can also test each side of your body with a variation of self weight training, recording how many reps you can do on each side. (this will test your muscular endurance and muscular strength more specifically.) remember: The purpose of this test is to allow you to benefit from unilateral exercise.
How to incorporate unilateral training into your exercise programme
Any exercise that requires you to move one side of your body at a time is a unilateral exercise and, if done well, can help to fix these imbalances.
Upper body unilateral exercises:We recommend one-arm overhead exercises, one-arm chest exercises, one-arm rowing, bottom-up kettlebell exercises, etc.
Lower body unilateral exercises:Any lunge is a good choice in addition to single leg squats and hard pulls. Try walking lunges, reverse lunges, front lunges, back high lunges (also called split squats) and bent knee lunges. Single leg straddle, single leg weighted straddle and single leg arm bridge to name a few.
Full body unilateral exercises:Try the turkish stance, windmill turn and one arm walk. Can't recommend them enough as they can tax the whole body and only work one side at a time.
When you first start unilateral training, keep it to sets of 5-12 and let your weak side determine the weight that comes to you. The goal is to help the weaker side catch up as quickly as possible, not to make the stronger team stronger.
Two more suggestions:Start with your non-dominant side. Work the less strong side first so that when you have more energy you can give the weaker side more of a workout. Keep the number of repetitions the same on both sides.
As for how to implement these movements into your daily routine? In fact, unilateral training can replace all bilateral training as it will only make you better at those bilateral movements. Therefore, there is no right or wrong way to incorporate unilateral training into your actual training, especially if you have not performed these exercises before.
If you need some specific strengthening exercises, consider turning the three types of movements above into a circuit two days a week and performing a separate unilateral workout.
