Single The benefits and advantages of side training have been explained in detail in previous articles!
Unilateral training can help you discover and improve the imbalance of left and right muscle strength and the shortcomings of different control abilities!
At the same time, unilateral training will recruit more motor units and help you improve muscle strength!
Unilateral training takes twice as long as training on each side. Ultimately, this creates higher metabolic demands and recruits more stabilizing muscle groups
Today I’m going to introduce a classic unilateral training movement: the single-leg leg press!
In single-leg action! For example, single-leg squats and single-leg deadlifts are relatively difficult movements! The single-leg leg press uses fixed equipment to help you eliminate some unstable factors! Let you better focus on developing muscle strength!
How to do it?
Starting position: Sit on a 45-degree incline leg press machine, or lie flat on the mat of a vertical leg press machine, with your left foot on the pedal and your legs and hips in line. straight line. Make sure your upper back and hips are in a straight line, and your left foot is on the pedal or your toes are slightly externally rotated.
Action essentials:
1. Push up the pedal with your left foot and release the locking device of the leg press machine, but be careful not to lock the knee joint.
2. Take a deep breath, hold your breath, tighten your abdominal muscles, control the rhythm of your movements, slowly bend your knees and lower them, try to make your thighs touch your chest, and the angle between your knees is about 90 degrees. Push the pedal up hard and return to the starting position.
Key tips:
1. Use a lighter weight at the beginning, at least less than 1/2 of the weight you usually use for leg presses.
2. Keep your knees and toes in a straight line throughout the movement.
3. When kicking off, keep the weight-bearing center in the center of the sole of the foot and avoid shifting to the toes or heels!
4. During the movement, keep your back tightly against the backrest and keep your core muscles tight. Enhance the stability of the spine, which is more conducive to the strength of the legs
5. Do not lock the knee joint at the highest point to avoid injury.
Training concept:
The traditional concept is that you should give priority to the weaker side. For example, if your left leg is the weaker side, do the left leg first. 10 times! Then do the same 10 times with the right leg! So as not to aggravate muscle imbalance!
Although doing this will allow your weak side to gradually catch up with your strong side leg! But one disadvantage is that your strong side leg will stagnate!
A better way!
First use the strong side to perform the movement with all your strength! Then strengthen the weak side!
For example, you can do 10 times of strong side kick! The weak side leg may not be able to do 10 reps, so you can pause for 10 seconds during the movement, adjust your breathing and then continue the movement until your weak side leg has also completed 10 reps, or 1-2 more times!
Example
Right side: 10 times
Left side: 7 times, pause for 10 seconds, continue 4 times
>This method will improve your bilateral muscle strength imbalance while allowing you to continue to be strong!
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