Benefits of Unilateral Exercises.

When it comes to resistance training, most movements fall into two categories—unilateral exercises or bilateral exercises.

Unilateral exercises are performed with one arm or a leg at a time. Bilateral exercises are performed with both arms or both legs at a time. While unilateral training is not a new concept, its popularity in the strength and conditioning field has exploded in recent years.

As mentioned previously, unilateral exercises are performed with one arm or one leg at a time. Let’s break down some of the key advantages with this type of training.

Advantage 1: Sports are Played on One Leg

This may sound a little odd, but generally speaking, any sport that involves running will require most actions to be performed off one leg. Whether you’re sprinting, throwing, cutting or jumping, it’s rare for both of your feet to be on the ground simultaneously during these movements. If we are attempting to make our training specific to athletics, then it makes sense to only train one leg at a time, because that more accurately reflects what the athlete will be asked to execute on the field.

Advantage 2: Training Balance and Core Stability

During lower-body unilateral movements, the individual must produce forceful contractions while standing on one leg. This requires greater proprioception and core stability than bilateral movements. The same goes for upper-body unilateral movements, as the core must work to prevent the torso from unnecessarily rotating during unilateral pushing or pulling exercises.

Advantage 3: Each Side Must Do an Equal Amount of Work

Athletes are typically riddled with muscular imbalances. This is due to the nature of sports. Every athlete has a dominant arm or a dominant leg. A more well-rounded athlete has a smaller gap between the skills and strength of their limbs, but there is almost always a deficit. When an athlete takes those deficits into the weight room to perform bilateral exercises, they will many times rely on the stronger side to perform more work. If you’re performing a heavy Back Squat, for example, it’s only natural that your stronger leg will contribute more significantly to the exercise than your weaker limb. But unilateral training avoids this issue by forcing you to train both sides in isolation. When you train unilaterally, you cannot rely on your stronger side to make up for a lack of strength in your weaker side. This ultimately helps decrease muscular imbalances throughout the body.

Advantage 4: Cross-Education Effect and Rehab

Via a phenomenon known as cross-education, unilateral exercises also strengthen the “unused” side of the body. Training one limb can cause strength gains in the contralateral (opposite) untrained limb. Essentially, unilateral exercises can increase strength in a limb without directly training it. A recent meta-analysis in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that cross-education in unilateral exercise produces, on average, an 11.9% increase in contralateral strength. This fact could be especially useful for preventing atrophy and maintaining strength in an injured limb, which could potentially limit the amount of imbalance between the two limbs when the injury heals.

Advantage 5: You Generally Won’t Be Limited By Your Core or Grip

Unilateral exercises are generally only limited by the limb doing the work. For example, in a Split Squat, the legs are going to fatigue or give out before the low back. But in a bilateral Back Squat, the weakest link could very well be the low back. Unilateral exercises can eliminate limiting factors, allowing you to better focus on building strength in the limb.

Thank you for taking time to check out my blog.

By IYEAL T.I

NASM CPT

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REFERENCES:

https://www.stack.com/a/unilateral-vs-bilateral-training-whats-best-for-athletes/