The Importance Of Unilateral Work

Almost all programs are built around the big bilateral movements, bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press, row, snatch, clean and jerk… the list goes on. This is for good reason, these bilateral compound lifts offer the ability to lift maximal weight, build strength and muscle.

However, unilateral work should have a place in your program. With benefits including, correcting imbalances, improved sport performance, reduced chance of injury, less systemic fatigue and improved core stabilization. (and no, core stabilization doesn’t happen trying to row while standing on a bosu ball, that’s just stupid).

What You'll Find Out

• 🤓 Benefits Of Unilateral Training

• 👉 How To Implement Into Your Training

• ✍️ TL:DR - Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

UNILATERAL WHAT?
Benefits Of Unilateral Training

INJURY POTENTIAL & PAIN

As mentioned above, there is a long list of benefits with unilateral training. By unilateral, I mean single arm or leg movements, allowing you to train both sides equally.

One problem that can arise from bilateral training is from the fact that everyone has a dominant side, now this isn’t inherently a problem, in fact this is normal. It can however become a problem when imbalances move outside this normal range which can happen from a lot of bilateral training (i.e., squats, bench, deadlifts) where you always favour your stronger, more coordinated side. It has been shown that bilateral asymmetries of >15% increase the risk of injuries (Knapik et al., 1991). Think of your hips shifting to one side when you squat, now imagine this becomes more exaggerated over time. This can lead to increased injury risk, pain in the body and decrease performance in the long run. Something we don’t want.

SPORT SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

We all want the ability to run, jump, throw, especially later in life. These are core movements for the human body sport performance aside.

When you think about these movements, they are typically always done in a unilateral fashion, i.e, spriting, changing direction, jumping off one leg, throwing anything.

Training the body unilaterally can aid in power and strength development of all of these areas.

Then we have the case for improving your lifting in the gym. If you can get stronger unilaterally, you will get stronger with your bilateral movements. Although strength is specific, (something we have covered here at strength framework before)… If you incorporate unilateral work, increase your strength overtime in those lifts and fix imbalances, your bilateral lifts will only increase.

A large systematic review and meta analysis by (Liao et al., 2022), which included 392 subjects, found that unilateral training had a large effect at improving unilateral jump performance compared to bilateral training, however the bilateral training had a small effect in improving bilateral strength compared to unilateral.

This highlights the point of specific strength, however it does show strength carry over to bilateral movements from unilateral, and with the added benefit of increased injury prevention.

TARGETING SPECIFIC MUSCLES

Let’s take the deadlift for this example, when we deadlift we use our full posterior chain to lift the bar to its end position.

But what if we wanted to target our glute med (a muscle which is the prime mover of hip abduction and assists with extension and lateral rotation of the hip).

Well, the single leg RDL (romanian deadlift) works the glute med better than a standard deadlift or RDL. A study published in the International Journal of Exercise Science 2021, looked at EMG activity in 15 amature athletes when performing a standard deadlift or a single leg variation.

The Glute Medius seen 77.6% activity in the single leg variation as opposed to the 59.3% seen in the standard deadlift. The bicep femoris (a muscle that makes up your hamstring) also seen more activation through the single leg variation (82.1% vs. 74.2%).

LESS SYSTEMATIC FATIGUE

Training heavy compound lifts like squats and deadlifts are hard, they take a fatigue toll on your body. This doesn’t mean stay away from them, in fact they should make up the core of your training program, as they give you incredible bang for your buck on strength and muscle development.

However, you can get similar strength and muscle growth responses from say a bulgarian split squat (yes everyone’s favorite spew bucket movement). The benefit the bulgarian split squat has over a squat (aside from increased strength symmetry) is that less load is required for a similar training adaptation.

Along with the single leg deadlift and single leg hip thrust, this means less overall fatigue from a heavy bar on your back or in your hands.

Although this is a trade off for more sets and potentially more time in the gym depending on how you manage your rest periods, the far lower load used should result in less fatigue overall.

Not all unilateral movements require more time however, opting for dumbbells for your accessory work when pressing requires both arms and associated muscles to work equally as hard.

GET IT IN
How To Implement Into Your Training

I did say at the start we build our training program around the big compound lifts, and this holds true. Unless you don’t care about increasing strength in them.

From there you could pick one or two unilateral movements to perform after your main compound lifts.

EXAMPLE: LOWER BODY (2x Unilateral Movements)

1. Squat - 3×5

2. Goodmorning - 3×8

3. Bulgarian Split Squat - 4×10-12

4. Single Leg RDL - 4×10-12

5. Leg Extension + Seated Hamstring Curl - 3×12-15

Now this is a very basic overview of how you may incorporate unilateral work, there is more to look at in terms of proximity to failure, rest times etc. But that’s more in depth for another article.

TL:DR
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications

There are obvious benefits from single leg or arm (unilateral) training including:

• Injury Prevention

• Targeting Specific Muscles

• Less Overall Fatigue

• Sport Specific Performance

• Addressing Muscle and Strength Imbalances

How you implement this in your program is entirely up to you. I personally like to incorporate one or two every training session.

If you have any questions you’d like answered, topics you would like discussed, or perhaps some feedback, email them over to me at: [email protected]

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