Single leg training, if you don't, you should...

I love single leg work. Its a challenge, it demands greater levels of stability, helps create strength and its absolutely necessary in my opinion. Think about it, you spend a whole load of time on 1 leg...
Walking down the street? Yes.
Going up or down stairs? Yes.
Fancy going for a jog? All one leg.
I could go on but I'm sure you get the point. You spend a whole bunch of time on one leg and to do that successfully, you need stability and strength.

This isnt gonna do it...

When you take a step, on the flat, going up or down a staircase, taking a stride during a run your body needs to create stability at the knee, hips and core.  Without the strength to stabilise the hips theres a bunch of ouch in your future! 

When you take a step, your weight goes on to 1 leg and your other leg lifts off the ground. Without stability, your hips on the unsupported side would drop stressing out your lumbar spine.

(A) is good. (B) isn't...

To stabilise the hips, the hip adductors and abductors need to be strong enough to keep the hips level.

The adductors are the adductor longus, adductor magnus, adductor brevis, pectineus and gracilis.

The abductors are the muscles that pull the legs apart, the gluteus minimus and the gluteus medius.

When a step is taken, the adductors contract to shift the hips over the supporting leg, and to counter the tendency for the unsupported side of the hips to drop, the abductors on the supporting side contract to hold the hips up and level. Weak abductors allow the hips to drop on the supporting side and if the hips tilt puling the lower spine to the dropped side. Not good...

So, single leg training helps to enhance the internal stability by forcing these muscle to work to stabilise the hips increasing the strength and ability of these muscles to keep you on the level.

In its simplest form, single leg training could be standing on one leg. Seriously. Try it. Stand on 1 leg, you'll notice that your feet, thighs and hips start working overtime to stabilise your upper body as it balances on the single stick that is your supporting leg. As your hips tire, you start to lean further over your supporting leg, taking the load off the abductors and you start to rely on balance.

Now most of us can manage to do this relatively easy task, so how do we progress? Well, I wouldn't advise going all Ben Bruno straight of the bat (seriously, this guy is crazy strong!)

Option 1
Static lunge. Starting with your feet shoulder width apart, take a big step forward keeping your feet shoulder width apart, now drop your hips straight down keeping your torso as vertical as possible. At the bottom you should be in a 90/90 position i.e. a 90 degree bend at your front knee, your back leg should be going straight down from your hips and bent at 90 degrees at your knee.  From this bottom position (your knee should be just above the ground, not touching it), contract the glutes and quads to drive your hips back to the starting point. The further you step out initially the more your glutes will be worked, and the shorter the step, more quads. Complete your reps on one side then switch to the other.

Option 2
Reverse lunge. starting in a standing position, step back to achive the lunge position, and drop vertically to the bottom position (90/90), again remaining as vertical as possible. From the bottom position, drive up using your glutes and quads, this time come all the way back to the standing position. Going backwards into the lunge takes the deceleration force out of the movement i.e. you don't have to resist the forward movement with your front leg, so those with knee pain may find that they can do reverse lunges even though forward lunges hurt their knees. You can either do all reps on 1 side before switching or alternate legs since you are coming back to the start point each time.

Option3
Rfess. I love this exercise! Start a short distance from a bench, facing away from it. Reach one leg back and place it on the bench with the top of the foot on the bench surface. Keeping a vertical torso, bend the front leg and drop the hips straight down until the trailing knee is just above the ground, you should feel a greater stretch in the hip flexors and quad of the trail leg than in the first 2 options. Drive through the heel of the the front foot and return to the starting position. Complete all reps on one side, then switch to the other leg.

Front foot on the box allows a deeper drop. From the floor initially is fine!

Option 4

Step up. stand in front of a box or bench that is high enough to put the crease of your hips just below your knee when your foot is on the bench. Now drive through the heel of your foot on the box to straighten your leg and pull you up onto the box, pause at the top and control your descent back to the ground keeping your working leg on the box throughout. Complete all reps on one side before moving onto the other.

Now. This is only 4 options. There are limitless options for  progressing from these 4 options, not only that but there are bunches that I've not put in here because:
1. There are so many options that this post would be stoopid long,
2. I plan on doing a follow up post where I'll look at other single leg exercises and I need to save a few!

Needless to say, you can add weight, change the height of the front foot to give a greater range of movement, have your weight in one hand only so as to create a offset load to challenge your stability etc.

I really feel that single leg training is hugely important to your training and you should, if you don't already, look to begin incorporating it into your training. You will create more stability and strength than you otherwise might. And that can only be a good thing!

Oh, and before I forget...I mentioned Ben Bruno earlier...

Thats 300lbs on 1 leg...

Stay healthy!