Adarq.org

This shit is apples and oranges.

Why not just do both and reap the benefits they provide?

If you're an athlete(that involves running), and you want to only do bilateral work, it will catch up to you.

IMO, there's no point attacking a single 'method' b/c of what it lacks. No single 'method' is all inclusive to get you strong, powerful, fast, and ripped, etc. Use each 'method' what it's meant for.

Comparing lunges and squats is retarded. You can do max effort squats, but why the fuck would you do max effort lunges?

If you have 2 lower body days a week, one day do bilateral movements, the other day do unilateral. WOW that was hard to think up.

T-nation btw, has been on a rapid decline in article quality. Go surf thru the archives if you want to find something useful.

On another note, imo, training articles/information has been beaten to death. I would like to see recovery be the new 'it-girl' trend in strength training articles/media. It's easy to beat the shit out of yourself in the gym, but if you're not recovering in time then you're just spinning your wheels. More recovery=more progress.

Sure you can do both, but that was not the point of discussion between adarq and me. It was also not the point of the article to proclaim the uselessness of unilateral exercises for running athletes, but rather for athletes that powerlift, olympic lift or do bodybuilding.
Your comment is apples, the rest of the discussion was oranges.

You can always do both, for those athletes you mentioned, single leg work wouldn't be the emphasis of their training.
Single leg work balances your legs out better than bilateral work.

With that said, I will step out of this mental masturbation circle jerk.

Please post evidence or provide logic reasoning for why unilaterals should balance out the legs more than correctly performed - which means balanced - bilateral exercises. And please explain why a powerlifter should do unilateral work when everything he does in his sport is bilateral in nature and will usually require a coordinated, well-balanced effort of both his left and right body side.
And don't just say "you can always do both", because only an idiot would bring forward such an argument, since it means that he does not understand that everything that is useless is in fact also detrimental because it means that valuable training time as well as physical resources are wasted which could otherwise be used for productive things that actually do something to help ones progress. And I don't think that you are an idiot, so please let us discuss this in an intelligent manner.

One of the reason I like unilaterals is because you can work depending on your weak limb. If you can lunge 90 kg for 5 reps with your right leg and 90 kg for 10 reps with your left leg, then you can limit your left leg training to the right leg RM. So they both get the same amount of training.

In a squat, you'd probably load more the left leg in this situation and continue with the imbalance (sure, doing the same amount of reps and doing a bilateral exercise will also help balance things out in the end). But I just feel like more focus can be applied with an unilateral exercise, there's also a bit less stability so the core works harder etc.

If you have severe strength imbalances that show in your squat, you need to use less weight. Some people have the problem of using one side differently in the squat than another and this can usually be dealt with if you are aware of it. Take weight of the bar and concentrate on perfect, symmetrical form. A unilateral exercise might help with the awareness, but the possibility of compensation is not ruled out by that - you still need to be very aware of your form.

I disagree about the core working harder. My core works harder in a 5 rm squat and works less in a 5 rm lunge due to the differences in weight being used.

It really just depends on what you're trying to improve on, I guess. So for athletics, unilateral work "must" be done because I feel it really helps and is more specific to human movement. For powerlifting etc, I don't really feel it "must" be done because it doesn't have any specificity to that.

I agree with that. Although I wouldn't use them for beginners.

steven-miller's next project is to get really really fast by doing nothing but double-legged bounds. 

Quote from: mattyg35 on November 16, 2010, 08:52:21 am

You can always do both, for those athletes you mentioned, single leg work wouldn't be the emphasis of their training.
Single leg work balances your legs out better than bilateral work.

With that said, I will step out of this mental masturbation circle jerk.

Please post evidence or provide logic reasoning for why unilaterals should balance out the legs more than correctly performed - which means balanced - bilateral exercises. And please explain why a powerlifter should do unilateral work when everything he does in his sport is bilateral in nature and will usually require a coordinated, well-balanced effort of both his left and right body side.
And don't just say "you can always do both", because only an idiot would bring forward such an argument, since it means that he does not understand that everything that is useless is in fact also detrimental because it means that valuable training time as well as physical resources are wasted which could otherwise be used for productive things that actually do something to help ones progress. And I don't think that you are an idiot, so please let us discuss this in an intelligent manner.

that stuff is going to be a bitch to find on google scholar, but regardless, most athletes (performance or strength) have a dominant and non-dominant limb for kicking/throwing etc.. this does effect bilateral movements.. unilateral strength work can definitely help to improve these imbalances, but i would imagine not completely improve them. There will always be a dominant/non-dominant limb, and this does effect force production, so bilaterally you're going to see some significant results there.

steven-miller, do you have any idea how high you jump off your right leg vs left leg?

here's two quick studies, unilateral/bilateral is a bitch to search..

Determination of Functional Strength Imbalance of the Lower Extremities

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (a) to determine whether a significant strength imbalance existed between the left and right or dominant (D) and nondominant (ND) legs and (b) to investigate possible correlations among various unilateral and bilateral closed kinetic chain tests, including a field test, and traditional isokinetic dynamometry used to determine strength imbalance. Fourteen Division I collegiate women softball players (20.2 +/- 1.4 years) volunteered to undergo measures of average peak torque for isokinetic flexion and extension at 60[degrees][middle dot]s-1 and 240[degrees][middle dot]s-1; in addition, measures of peak and average force of each leg during parallel back squat, 2-legged vertical jump, and single-leg vertical jump and performance in a 5-hop test were examined. Significant differences of between 4.2% and 16.0% were evident for all measures except for average force during single-leg vertical jump between the D and ND limbs, thus revealing a significant strength imbalance. The 5-hop test revealed a significant difference between D and ND limbs and showed a moderate correlation with more sophisticated laboratory tests, suggesting a potential use as a field test for the identification of strength imbalance. The results of this study indicate that a significant strength imbalance can exist even in collegiate level athletes, and future research should be conducted to determine how detrimental these imbalances could be in terms of peak performance for athletes, as well as the implications for injury risk.

edit: so, a powerlifter should incorporate some kind of unilateral training as assistance to help improve the deficit between non-dominant and dominant limbs.. this will be easier with lower body, ie using lunges/stepups/bss.. for upper body, single arm db press or single arm snatch, single arm curl, & single arm row would probably be the most beneficial. Kroc, for example, is a huge fan of unilateral lifting, he's a powerlifter, you can catch him doing insane 1-arm db rows with like 225 & high rep log walking lunges.


peace

steven-miller's next project is to get really really fast by doing nothing but double-legged bounds. 

lol

when it comes performance that involves highly single leg efforts, ie single leg jumpers and sprinters, bilateral only training can REALLY screw that up.

i mean we've all seen it, the SL jumper who gets into lifting, focuses primarily on squatting, then becomes a double leg jumper.

pc

Quote from: adarqui on November 16, 2010, 06:07:59 pm

Quote from: LBSS on November 16, 2010, 05:03:42 pm

steven-miller's next project is to get really really fast by doing nothing but double-legged bounds.  

lol

when it comes performance that involves highly single leg efforts, ie single leg jumpers and sprinters, bilateral only training can REALLY screw that up.

i mean we've all seen it, the SL jumper who gets into lifting, focuses primarily on squatting, then becomes a double leg jumper.

pc

Interesting you should say that Andrew. I agree with what you are saying but have no scientific evidence other than my own experiences.  Last summer I focused on running a lot of hill sprints and doing walking lunges as my primary leg training as it was easier on my knees. I found that as a result when I did any max effort jumping my body naturally wanted to do single leg jumps even though I don't do any specific jump training any more (just weights and hill sprints).

it is my opinion that, people with a naturally larger bilateral deficit, will tend to naturally want to be a single leg jumper.. As you train bilaterally, this deficit decreases and eventually becomes nullified, creating then a unilateral deficit.. So, by training bilaterally solely (and being a single leg jumper), it's going to cause more inhibition for unilateral athletic movements and less inhibition for bilateral athletic movements, because heavy bilateral training (without unilateral) causes large adaptations towards improving/utilizing this new found strength/motor programming etc. People who perform very poorly on unilaterals vs bilaterals are most often than not, going to want to jump double leg. People with a naturally lower bilateral deficit seem to be more "strength dominant", while people with a large bilateral deficit tend to be more of the reactive type.

so, a focus on unilateral-only training, will create a bigger bilateral deficit, which gives you that "sensation" of wanting to jump single leg.. I know the sensation, it's just, in your mind, everything is telling you to launch off one leg.. this happened when I was doing those very high rep bodyweight walking lunges for 1 month, the 800 total shit hah.. But ya, I had urges to jump single leg, every jump session, eventually I even tried dunks.. Shortly after stopping that lunge experiment due to dangerous conditions performing them (heh), i don't get those urges anymore.. I have 0 urge to jump single leg..

Now several years ago when I trained exclusively for vertical I did a lot more squatting and trap bar deadlifting, as well as box jumps with a weight vest and back then I was a two foot jumper.

Whoever said T-Nation has declined is right. They still have a few good articles here and there though, this one was worth the read I thought.

Good topic for the mental masturbators.

we are all masturbating mentally, thanks to you.

During a squat for example, the outer quad(vastus lateralis) is recruited more than the inner quad(VMO). This will eventually lead to an imbalance, which if ignored can result in the knee 'caving in' b/c of the lack of strength of the VMO which may lead to injury. This is also why the VMO is heavily rehabbed in ACL injuries, to prevent further injury and 'caving in' of the knee. This is coming from experience.

wow i always thought the knee caving in = internal rotation of the femur which happen be because of tilted pelvis (which could suggests weak glutes and abs), or weak just glutes/hams....corrected by hip extension exercises focusing on keepping the knees in line with the hips/ankles, coupled with glute activation