Single Leg Training
Many people when they train their lower body forget about single leg training. Most commercial gyms you go too you mainly see people doing leg press, leg extension, leg curl with very few people squatting or deadlifting (with proper technique). I’m not saying Squats and Deadlifts aren’t important, people often forget to develop a balance between their two legs. Here I’m going to highlight the benefits of single leg training and over the course of time post videos of these exercises done properly.
1) Balance Between Legs and Injury Prevention
In sports it is very important to have a balance in strength between both legs. With one leg stronger or weaker than the other there is an increased chance of this leading to an injury. By doing single leg exercise you reduce this chance of injury by ensuring that the strength in each leg is equal.
2) Improved Balance and Proprioception
By doing single leg exercises it will greatly help to increase your balance. This is especially important for an athlete as good balance is key. Your body’s proprioception ability will also increase over time, the ability to know where you are in space.
3) Strengthen Knee Stabilisers
Single leg exercises increase strength in your gluteal and vastus medialis oblique’s (VMO), these are key muscles in strengthening your knee and reducing the chance of injury to your knee. Studies have shown how ever that these muscles are enhanced the deeper your go, so it’s vital that you do ALL exercises with full range of motion.
These are the key main reasons to do single leg training. It’s vitally important that as an athlete you train your lower body. The lower body makes up for half your body so if your not including it in your training program you should, at least 2-3 times a week in pre-season. By including lower body training and incorporating single leg training into these sessions it will help to improve strength between your two legs and most importantly reduce the change of injury.
Below is one of my favourite single leg exercises the “Single Leg Step Up”. Over the course of the next month I will be posting many more videos of single leg exercises so keep checking back.
Will
