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There is always a huge debate in sports,
athletic and bodybuilding training about
the benefits of single leg training as
opposed to double leg training...for example,
should you do regular barbell squats or
are lunges better?
Do
single leg exercises have greater carryover
to sports and athletics or is an athlete
better off using an exercises like squats
that you can load more heavily in order
to build overall strength then use athletic
practice to develop specific strength.
I'm
not going to get into that whole debate
here...my approach is to do BOTH. They
each have their benefits and their place
in training.
THIS
exercise, however, gives you the advantage
of serious loading on the target muscles
AND doing it one leg at a time to develop
that functional strength we're looking
for. It's also a great core strength workout
as the tension is going to be going primarily
through one side of your body.
It's the Single Leg Lockout Partial Squat.
This
exercise, when you really load it heavily
like I do, should ONLY be done in a power
rack. I would also highly recommend
getting a piece of squat training equipment
called the Manta Ray (click
here to read to my full review of the
Manta Ray).
Ideally,
you should also be familiar with lockout
partial squatting with both legs before
working with the single leg version.
I HIGHLY
recommend you start with a lighter weight
(like your around 80% of your normal 1
RM on a regular squat, for example) in
order to get used to the exercise and
how it loads your body before you start
moving up in weight.
This
exercise is completely safe when you perform
it within your own ability level, which
is why I recommend starting nowhere the
weights that I use when I do the exercise
:) You need to develop the unilateral
leg and core strength and stability to
be able to handle bigger loads before
actually tackling the bigger loads, even
if you feel you have the leg strength
to push higher.
Do
your first trial of these with weights
BELOW your 1 rep max for sets of 10 to
12 reps or so. Then see how it feels,
let your body adapt and gradually move
yourself up from there.
I've
been doing these for a long time and doing
partial squats for a long time so I'm
able to push the weight to a pretty substantial
level here without any problems (675 lbs/7
plates on the bar in the pics here), doing
sets of 6 reps.
How to Do Single Leg Lockout Partial
Squats:
You're
going to set the rails in the power rack
to just below the lockout position of
your squat. You only want to hit the top
few inches of the range of motion with
this exercise.
Get
yourself under the bar like you were going
to do a regular squat.
Now
get your left foot directly under the
mid-point of the bar. This is important!
You want your working leg to have a directly
line of push through the weight.
Your
other leg is going to be set out to the
side for balance, like the outrigger on
a canoe...it doesn't contribute much directly
to the upwards movement but is used for
balance and support. That other foot should
on the balls of the foot, almost like
the top position of a calf raise. This
will allow it to be more active in helping
with balance.
Now
you're ready to start. Get yourself locked
under the bar and make sure you're pushing
from the HEEL of your foot, not from your
toes, on that working leg. That'll activate
the glutes more strongly, which help power
this exercise.
Take
a big breath and HOLD IT for the duration
of the up and down, until you set that
bar back down on the rails. This is a
very short movement and you don't need
to breathe whilel doing it. Breathing
will just destabilize your core. We want
a rock-solid, fireplug-tight core while
performing this exercise because of the
unbalanced tension going through your
body while doing it.
Push
the bar off the rails, straightening your
leg, then set it back down. You don't
need to hold the lockout at the top -
there's no real advantage in doing it.
Just get it off the rails, straighten
you leg then immediately come back down
and set it back on the rails again.
Repeat
this for all your reps on the first leg
then switch to the other leg.
Remember
to hold your breath all the way up and
down and make sure you set your working
leg right under the center of the bar.
This
is a GREAT exercise for developing serious
unilateral strength in the lower body
and great core strength for sports.
Even
though it's relatively lighter than regular
lockout partial squats, you can still
load it pretty substantially so make sure
you do it smartly, starting with sub-maximal
weights in order to gauge how your body
responds to this type of training.
