Benefits of Unilateral Training

Our philosophy at Art of Strength Tampa Bay is simple. We will do whatever we have to do to make a person move the way God intended them to move. God loves it when we squat deep, press our head through the window on a press, keep a vertical shin when lunging, and a flat strong back when it is necessary...which is always.

To help people learn to master movement patterns with balance and control, we mix in unilateral training in our skill segments, strength regiments, and workouts. We believe doing this will drastically increase strength and balance in bilateral lifts like the Squat, Deadlift, Clean, and other compound traditional lifts.

Put simply, unilateral training means developing one side of the body independently.

As an example, a barbell squat would be a bilateral exercise because you are using two (bi-) legs to lift the weight. A lunge would be an example of a unilateral strength training exercise, because one (uni-) leg is dominant in the movement.

Unilateral strength training provides several benefits, that traditional bilateral training often doesn’t, or can’t provide.

First, unilateral training helps activate deep core muscles, small stabilizer muscles, and creates more neurons to fire engaging and training your CNS (Central Nervous System). The benefits of this are endless and unilateral training will also illustrate in real time where inefficiencies may lie that you could not detect with bilateral movements.

Second, most activities on a day to day basis are unilateral. Thus, unilateral training is "functional". Think how often you use one side of your body when doing an activity. Picture yourself carrying groceries in one hand and talking on the telephone with the other. Think back to college when you held a beer in your left hand and punched an opposing teams fan with you other. See, unilateral training is very useful and practical.

Training like this will help improve your quality of life and your ability to perform at your best.

Speaking of daily activities, most of us have a dominant side.  Meaning we over-develop our stronger side and under-develop our weaker side.  As time goes on, muscular imbalances develop, putting us at risk of injury.  Most causes of back pain originate with weak abdominal stabilizer muscles.  This imbalance from front to back causes injury.

Rounded shoulders often mean weak upper back muscles, or overdeveloped upper body pushing muscles.

Golfers and Baseball players are at big risk for muscular imbalances and overuse injuries.  Performing the same movement, with the same side over and over again predisposes you to injury. Unilateral strength training will help offset the effects of these types of activities.

One thing to consider when doing unilateral training is to always train your weaker side first. This is important because if you train the stronger side first the weaker side will fire to aid it and by the time you do your weaker side it will not be strong enough to work at it's full capacity.

I hope this was useful guys. Make sure to incorporate this into your training to create a balanced body that is free from injury. 

Like the wind...

7/11/13

Warm-up: #3

Skill: KB Lateral Walkouts 3x20

Strength: Bulgarian Split Squats with KB/BB in rack position 3x6 (L/R)

Workout: 20 on 10 off for 8 Rounds

Box Dips

Rest 3 Minutes

8 Min EMOM (M: 20kg/W: 12kg)

6 DBL KB Swings to a Squat
10 DBL KB Reverse Lunges

Barbell Club

Warm-up: #3

Skill: KB Lateral Walkouts 3x20

Strength: 5x1 1 Clean Pull + 1 Hang Clean  + 1 FS  + 1 Jerk

Rest 2 min

Front Squats
5x3 AHAP