Leg day. Two words that send shivers down most people’s spines. Now, do you know how to make it even scarier? Single-leg exercises. Absolutely terrifying!
Single-leg or unilateral leg exercises are extremely difficult, there’s no doubt about that, but working them into your routine can offer some unique benefits that you won’t get with performing the exercise with both legs. Whether you’re an athlete looking to get an extra edge or someone who’s looking to correct muscle imbalances, unilateral leg exercises are a must-add to your workout.
What Are Unilateral Leg Exercises?
As mentioned in the intro, unilateral or single-leg exercises involve only using one leg at a time. Instead of being able to distribute the weight between both legs, only one takes the full brunt, which, even with a lower load, increases the difficulty of the movement. You have to focus on moving the weight as well as staying balanced throughout the exercise.
13 Best Unilateral Leg Exercises
This is by no means a complete list. Instead, we included the most effective unilateral leg exercises, as our team decided.
Lunges
We couldn’t come to a consensus with just one type of lunges being the most effective, so here are the three we could agree on:
*It should be noted that the dumbbell versions are shown, but feel free to start with just bodyweight.
1. Reverse Lunge
Reverse lunges are a great way to get the benefits of lunges while taking some stress off the knees and strengthening the posterior chain. But that’s not all; moving backward improves your balance and stability, so you’re getting a great workout and improving your coordination.
2. Curtsy Lunge
Consider the curtsy lunge a reverse lunge with a twist. By crossing your leg behind your body, you’ll increase hip stability and body coordination. All while hitting your glutes, quads, and inner thighs.
3. Walking Lunges
Walking lunges are the bane of many gym-goers’ existence. But there’s a good reason why: they are highly effective. Combining strength, mobility, balance, and cardiovascular work, walking lunges are a great way to work your lower body muscles and improve your overall fitness level.
Step-Ups
This was another category on which we couldn’t agree, but we were able to narrow it down to two variations.
4. Step-Up
Step-ups are an underrated way to focus on single-leg strength. They are mostly applicable for everyday activities like going up the stairs and are a fantastic way to focus on quad and glute strength. Adjusting the difficulty is a simple task, with lower objects being easier and higher objects more difficult. For some added difficulty, slowly lower yourself back down to the ground.
5. Lateral Step-Up
Rather than focusing on the usual suspects, lateral step-ups put pressure on your hip abductors and adductors, two muscles that are often overlooked. Athletes who need lateral mobility, such as those who play defense in basketball, can benefit from having a stronger hip complex.
6. Bulgarian Split Squat
This is probably the most dreaded unilateral leg exercise in our company. We think the Bulgarain split squat was invented first as a means of torture rather than an exercise. Take everything that’s difficult about a lunge and make it harder by lifting your back foot off the ground. If you see someone repping these out in the gym, just know they have some serious lower body power.
7. Single-Leg Deadlift
One of our favorite exercises for targeting the posterior chain, we love how much single-leg deadlifts help with improving balance, and the stretch you can get at the bottom of the movement.
8. Pistol Squat
We’ll start by saying pistol squats are not for novices. They require considerable strength, flexibility, and balance to perform. But if you can get yourself into enough shape to start incorporating them, your quads, glutes, and calves will reap some serious benefits.
9. Single-Leg Press
Using a leg press machine for unilateral work is one of the best ways to really hit targeted sets. You don’t have to worry about staying upright, so that lets you focus on muscle contraction. You also get the added benefit of being able to adjust leg press foot placement. Want more glutes and hamstrings? Move your feet toward the top. More quads? Slide your feet down.
11. Single-Leg Box Squat
Think of these as a warm-up to the pistol squat. The principle is the same, but in this case, you have a safety net in the form of a box or bench. These are a great way to help improve stability and balance safely.
12. Single-Leg Glute Bridge
It’s about time we put a hamstring and glute-focused exercise on this list. Not only will this glute bridge variation help build up your backside, but your core is going to get a nice workout, too!
13. Single-Leg Calf Raise
It would be foolish not to include direct work for the calves. A strong base starts at the bottom, and your calves play a huge role in keeping you upright. They’re essential for explosive movements in sports.
4 Tips To Incorporate Unilateral Leg Exercises into Your Routine
It can seem a bit daunting to try to start using single-leg exercises in your workouts, so here are some tips to make this process as painless as possible:
1. Start with bodyweight
Sometimes, your body weight will be too much, and that’s ok! If you need to do these exercises near something you can hold onto, do it! Once you can do it on your own, make sure your form is perfect before you try moving on.
2. Quality not quantity
You’ll get more out of doing 10 slow controlled reps than 20 sloppy rushed reps. Single-leg exercises can feel like a punishment, but remember, you’re doing it to improve yourself. If you’re half-assing the exercises just to get through, you’re cheating yourself. If you’re supposed to do 10 reps but can only get 5 without breaking form, get the 5 and work on getting that 6th. You’re setting yourself up for injury if you perform these exercises incorrectly.
3. Strike a balance
Your workouts should be a combination of bilateral and unilateral movements. For every two bilateral movements, I like to use one unilateral movement. For example, if I start my workout with squats and then move to leg press, I’ll follow that up with lunges.
Personal preference: I like starting with a bilateral movement, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start with a unilateral one. Just make sure you’re warmed up with whatever you’re doing! If you have a known weaker leg, start the exercise off with that one. That way, your stronger leg won’t outwork the one that needs to be brought up.
4. Gradually increase resistance
As you saw in some of the video demos, you can add resistance to these exercises for an even greater challenge. Make sure you start small! A 5lb dumbbell may not seem like a lot, but it can feel like a small car when it comes to unilateral work.
5 Benefits Of Unilateral Leg Exercises
So, leg day is miserable enough; why would you want to add to the suffering? Here are five reasons you should add single-leg movements into your lower body days.
1. Helps Correct Muscle Imbalances
You have a dominant hand, so it would make sense that you also have a dominant leg. As you proceed with your normal training, the dominant leg takes on more load, leading to a muscle imbalance. Performing an exercise one leg at a time can show you the strength disparity between your legs, allowing you to make adjustments to avoid injury down the road.
2. Enhances Stability and Balance
Because you don’t have a wide, sturdy base, performing unilateral exercises fires up your stabilizer muscles from your ankles all the way up through your core. Strengthening these little muscles will increase overall stability, balance, and coordination.
3. Improves Athletic Performance
No matter what sport you play, single-leg strength and power are vital to being successful on the field/court/whatever. In football and soccer, changing direction quickly involves planting off one foot, jumping on track and field requires explosiveness off one leg, and even kicking in swimming requires equal power from each leg to avoid veering off course. Unilateral training can help make sure you’re equally powerful with either leg, leading to a better athlete.
4. Injury Prevention
Because those little stabilizers are working overtime to ensure you don’t flop over in the middle of a single-leg squat, they’re helping keep your tendons and muscles strong, which can make or break when it comes to injury. Not all, but a lot of knee injuries could be avoided with stronger muscles surrounding the joint.
5. Functional Strength
You’re performing unilateral activities every day whether you know it or not. Walking and going upstairs are both unilateral movements, and both would benefit from targeted exercise.
For a quick anecdote, I met with an orthopedic doctor about some knee pain when going up and down stairs, and his first suggestion to me was to strengthen the muscles around the knee before looking at any other interventions. Several months later, and I’ll happily take the stairs over cramming into an elevator.
Wrap-Up
Unilateral leg exercises are an incredible way to correct muscle imbalances, improve balance and stability, and increase strength. Adding single-leg exercises to your routine allows you to build a powerful, well-balanced lower body that’s ready to compete at a high level or cruise up a few flights of stairs with no problem. Regardless of your fitness goals, unilateral leg exercises deserve a spot in your workout regimen.
