When you are doing single leg squats, why do you rest your leg on a bench instead of a floor. When you are doing a single leg deadlift, why dont’ you rest your free leg on the floor ?
teotjunk
what… the fuck
Stabilization.
Are you rehabbing something? I am not sure I have ever seen a single leg dead lift and I am not sure why you would want to do it unless you had lost the use of one of your legs.
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Are you rehabbing something? I am not sure I have ever seen a single leg dead lift and I am not sure why you would want to do it unless you had lost the use of one of your legs.
[/quote]
single leg DL’s are probably one of the absolute best things you can do for you knees and hips… with or without additional weight.
[quote]Jarvan wrote:
what… the fuck[/quote]
True
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Are you rehabbing something? I am not sure I have ever seen a single leg dead lift and I am not sure why you would want to do it unless you had lost the use of one of your legs.
[/quote]
Single leg deadlifts were used pretty commonly when rehabbing from my hip surgery, and from my knee injury. Didn’t use a significant amount of weight, but it was pretty hard to do actually.
Not sure I would ever do a heavy weighted single leg deadlift though. Seems awkward with a barbell.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Are you rehabbing something? I am not sure I have ever seen a single leg dead lift and I am not sure why you would want to do it unless you had lost the use of one of your legs.
[/quote]
Wild. You learn something new everyday.
At the last uni I was at, the S+C coach was a PLer that did single leg RDLs… ended up hurting himself, though.
[quote]teotjunk wrote:
When you are doing single leg squats, why do you rest your leg on a bench instead of a floor.[/quote]
If you’re talking about:
vs 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmgNHQ_wQg
You can get a bit deeper range of motion by elevating the back leg. They’re just variations of the same basic movement, so it’s not like one is “right” and the other is “wrong.” It depends on why you’re doing it and what you want to get out of it.
Again, you could do either way. Keeping the non-working foot off the ground the whole time will make it more challenging, especially for the smaller stabilizers in the ankle, knee, and hip.
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Are you rehabbing something? I am not sure I have ever seen a single leg dead lift and I am not sure why you would want to do it unless you had lost the use of one of your legs. [/quote]
Wild. You learn something new everyday. [/quote]
Just to tack onto this, they’ve been talked about for quite a while. I think they just never really “caught on” because, simply, they’re tough, humbling, and take longer to do than a straightforward set of “regular” deads or RDLs.
For example, Waterbury was praising them in 2009:
“The Eight Best Muscle-Building Exercises
… Hamstrings … Winner: Single-leg deadlift with a dumbbell held on the opposite side.”
In 2011, Mike Boyle had an article discussing the single-leg training and referenced this video (of recent T-Nation contributor Max Shank):
Cressey and Gentilcore have also talked about the benefits. If you’ll notice, it’s all the coaches with a more “athletic training” background, rather than guys based strictly in bodybuilding. Whether that lends to or detracts from the credibility of the moves is up to the reader, I guess (but it should be a no-brainer).
[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
If you’ll notice, it’s all the coaches with a more “athletic training” background, rather than guys based strictly in bodybuilding. Whether that lends to or detracts from the credibility of the moves is up to the reader, I guess.[/quote]
Agreed. As always, the background of the trainer and the goals of the trainee dictate whether an exercise is sensible or not.
I have always had somewhat lagging hamstrings and glutes. Thus, in college while training for football, I performed some stiff-legged-single-leg DL’s (sometimes lifting a single dumbbell or kettlebell placed in front of me, other times a weight placed on each side of me) in an attempt to engage the glutes and hams. Not sure how effective it was, but I certainly “felt” like it was doing something. Never lifted nearly as heavy as these videos have shown, though.
I suspect that for a lifter/athlete with some need to avoid heavy bilateral squats or deadlifts (be that due to a preexisting injury or lack of squat rack/barbells), they would be quite useful for leg development, and that the loads could be pushed farther than we might think (as we’ve seen in the videos in some of the links posted here).
A bodybuilder may find them less enticing for some of the reasons that you already enumerated.
What’s the difference between doing lunges with the weight at your side compared to the front or at the back ?
teotjunk
I have another question. What would be you typical ratio of single leg squat to double leg leg for both cases, resting your feet on the floor or not?
[quote]teotjunk wrote:
What’s the difference between doing lunges with the weight at your side compared to the front or at the back ?
teotjunk[/quote]
Having weight in front of you with lunges would be difficult I feel like. Only way I really know how to do this is to hold the weight with your arms bent, not very conductive when weights get heavier.
By back do you mean like a barbell on your back? Advantage here is you take grip out of the equation compared to DB’s. Disadvantage for me is balance is harder.
Side: Using DB’s, I can balance much easier then with a barbell on my back. Not sure why exactly. Only downside is when you start moving more weight grip becomes a factor.
[quote]teotjunk wrote:
I have another question. What would be you typical ratio of single leg squat to double leg leg for both cases, resting your feet on the floor or not?
[/quote]
Individual variance. With single leg you have to balance yourself more, which for some people is harder (like me, cause my balance sucks). For me, I’d venture to guess I can do about 60% of the load I can do for a 2 leg squat. I didn’t run the exact numbers but that seems to be a close estimate.
Though I think that’s a balance issue, because if I do walking DB lunges I can move much more weight.
Doesn’t mean people don’t have different ratios though. It also changes as you get more used to a movement and stronger overall.
Bulgarian splits arer fantastic for stabilization. But I recently read an article by DH Kiefer (formerly of Dangerously Hardcore and the Carb Back Loading stuff) that balance training can actually down regulate proprioception and even cause strength loss. Not exactly sure if this applies to single legged squats, but I’d imagine so. Like to see some more research or articles about it before I change my training though.