The 15 Best Unilateral Exercises for Building a Balanced and Robust Physique
If you want to bolster your muscle building efforts while also bulletproofing yourself from injury, look no further. Unilateral exercises (single limb exercises) do more than just even out strength disparities. By including them in your programming, you'll be reducing the risk of injury, boosting performance, unlocking strength gains and building a symmetrical physique.
What Is a Unilateral Exercise?
A unilateral exercise is an exercise that predominantly works a single limb (arm or leg) at once. It will typically focus on working one side of the body at a time. This contrasts with bilateral exercises which work both sides at the same time. Examples of unilateral exercises are:
Step-ups
Single Leg Deadlifts
Single Arm Rows
Single Arm Presses
Single Arm Carries
Why Is Unilateral Training Beneficial?
You'll often see the best strength and conditioning coaches programming unilateral exercises, and for good reason. Unilateral exercises have a wide range of benefits:
Evening out strength disparities
Unilateral exercises shine a light on limbs that are lacking in strength. For example, if you spend your days under the bar completing bench press and squats, you may not notice dominant limbs taking the brunt of the work. By splitting the work between limbs with the use of dumbbells, you'll soon see which limbs take the lead in strength gains, giving you ample opportunity to bring up lagging muscles.
Boosting performance
The Bulgarian weight lifting teams knew a thing or two about boosting strength numbers, so much so that they set trends by including moves such as high step-ups and Bulgarian split squats in their programming in order to improve the performance of their barbell lifts. As well as this, evidence published in The Strength & Conditioning Journal indicates that such a thing as 'bilateral force deficits' exists. It explains that research has shown that when participants in studies perform single limb exercises, the strength results of each limb usually exceed that of both limbs combined when completing bilateral work. The evidence concludes that reducing this bilateral force deficit could benefit sport performance and may reduce the likelihood of injury.
Injury-proofing and management
To further emphasise the injury-proofing benefits, evidence published in Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise states that an advantage of unilateral training is that it can provide immediate and constant feedback regarding limb symmetry, a significant factor in the management of major injury. Meaning, if you can see that a previously injured limb is lacking in strength, you can focus on this limb to even out strength disparities and therefore potentially reduce re-injury.
Building a symmetrical physique
For those who have bodybuilding and physique goals, if you have lagging muscle groups, unilateral work will help you isolate those muscles more than bilateral exercises and therefore increase the size of them individually. This can contribute to an aesthetically well-rounded physique as well as one that performs well.
The 15 Best Unilateral Exercises
1/ High Step-up
Place a bench or a high box in front of you and step onto it with one foot. As you plant your foot, push through the heel so that you are up on the box. Slowly lower yourself back down, resisting gravity as much as possible. Repeat on the same side for your full amount of reps before switching sides.
2/ Bulgarian Split Squat
Stand 2-4 feet in front of a bench (depending on your height), facing away. Have one leg resting on the bench behind you, laces down, with your feet in line with your hips. Sink your body down until the knee of your back leg almost touches the floor. The front knee should be at a right angle. Push up through your front foot to return to the start position.
3/ Single Arm Row
Head to a flat bench and place your right hand against it under your shoulder, keeping your arm straight. Rest your right knee on the bench and step your other leg out to the side. With your free hand grab a dumbbell off the floor and row it up to your hip in an arc shape until your upper arm is parallel with the floor. Lower slowly downwards and repeat.
4/ Single Arm Dumbbell Chest Press
Lie on a flat bench with one dumbbell up above your chest with the arm straight and the palms facing away from you. Lower the dumbbell to the side of your chest, at 45 degrees below your shoulders. Feel a stretch across your chest before pushing the dumbbell away from you, ready to repeat.
5/ Reverse Lunge
Start by standing tall. Keeping your chest up at all times, take a step back with one leg, bending your front knee until the back knee almost touches the ground. Push through the front heel back to standing. Repeat.
6/ Landmine Single Leg Deadlift
Lift the bar to waist height with a suitcase-style grip. Lift the opposite leg and hinge at your hips. Pause as the bar touches the floor, reverse to stand. Swap sides after the set.
7/ Half Kneeling Press
Lift the loaded end of the bar to your shoulder and step back into a lunge with the foot on the same side and kneel down. Push the bar away from your shoulder without twisting. Lower, reset and repeat.
8/ Single Leg Hip Thrust
Start with your upper back supported on a bench and both feet planted on the floor. For the correct set up, when raising your hips, your knees, hips and shoulders should be in line and your heels should be under your knees. Your chin should also be tucked. Begin the rep with one leg lifted, push through the supporting leg so that your hips extend before slowly reversing the movement so your hips sink close to the floor, ready to repeat.
9/ Kneeling Kettlebell Windmill
Kneel with an upright posture and neutral spine. Grab the kettlebell with the hand opposite to your kneeling leg. To clean into the rack position, contract your glutes and extend your hips, rather than just relying on your arm. Keep your elbow high to further engage your shoulder. Press the weight over your head and pause. Keep your spine straight and arm extended, then hinge at your hips to lean forward. Push your glutes back slightly. As you hinge, reach your empty hand between your knees and look up. Raise your torso and lower the weight to the rack position, then the ground.
10/ Meadows Row
Stand by the end of the loaded bar, hinge down and grab it with an overhand grip. Draw your elbow back, behind your body, raising the bar towards your hips. Lower slowly and repeat.
11/ Pistol Squat
Stand with your feet in a narrow stance and lift one leg off the floor. Bend your standing knee to squat down as low as you can while keeping your back straight. Push back up to the start position through your heel, then switch legs and repeat.
12/ Single Arm Kettlebell Swing
Stand with feet set wider than shoulder-width and bend your knees to grab the kettlebell with one hand. Drive your hips, keep your back flat swing the weight up to shoulder height. Return to the start position and repeat without losing momentum.
13/ Suitcase Farmer's Carry
Drop your weight to your sides and finish the round with test of grip strength. Let your arms hang freely at your sides, take a deep breath into your belly and begin a fast, deliberate march. Once you’ve covered your allotted distance, drop your bell, shake off those arms and get ready for round two.
14/ Single Arm Overhead Carry
Clean your dumbbell onto your chest and press it overhead. Take a few deep breaths before starting your walk. As you move, try to avoid flaring your ribcage. Keep your core braced and your biceps almost touching your ears. The strength and stability you will build across your whole shoulder girdle here is ideal for keeping them injury free in the long run.
15/ Staggered Stance Romanian Deadlift
Plant the ball of one foot a little behind you and keep the weight in your front foot, hold the dumbbell at your side. Hinge at the hips and send them behind you with a flat back. Push through the front heel back to standing, ready to repeat.
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