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In the effort to achieve one fitness goal or another, a lot of folks forget about unilateral training, which involves training only one side at the time. If you’ve ever done alternating biceps curls, you’ve done unilateral training–by curling each weight up, squeezing the muscle, and then returning it to the bottom before curling the other one up.
The benefits of unilateral training are pretty straightforward: since you’re training each side individually, you can focus more so on the muscle itself, you can (hopefully) eliminate any swinging or momentum, and you can target any weaknesses. So if you’re left pectoral (chest muscle) is much stronger then your right pectoral, for example, you may incorporate alternating dumbbell chest presses into your workout.
Here’s a quick tip–unilateral exercises can be a fantastic addition to any workout, and you should generally include at least one unilateral exercise in your leg routine to prevent any muscle imbalances that may (eventually) result in an injury. That may be as simple as including a dumbbell or barbell lunge into your workout.
Unilateral exercises can also make a great addition to sports-specific training. I mentioned earlier that your routines should have some overarching plan, and I suggested a linear periodization method–so your workouts will progress linearly towards a single goal, whether that means starting in a foundational period of strength and gradually increasing your repetition range and total number of sets every 3-4 weeks until you reach a final, muscle-building phase, or if it means progressing towards a period where you incorporate lots of moves that mimic the sport you’re trying to improve on, like golf (so lots of rotational work, abdominal work, lower-back and rotator cuff exercises, forearm work, etc.).
That’s where unilateral exercises can be a key addition: in these final, sports-specific cycles.
But don’t forget about them if you’re NOT training to improve in a single sport. Try a few of these workout suggestions and see if you like any of them. To give you an idea, you can generally lift less weight with a unilateral exercise then you can with a non-unilateral exercise. So if you usually lift 75 pounds for 8 to 10 repetitions for the dumbbell bench press, you may have to knock it down to 55 or even 50 pounds to achieve the same number of repetitions.
Unilateral Exercises (to name a few)
One-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press (Flat or Incline)
One-Arm Dumbbell Shrug
Alternating Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Leaning Dumbbell Lateral Raise (grab onto a stable vertical bar, keeping your feet wedged against the side, and lean away from the bar, holding a dumbbell; perform a lateral raise).
One-Arm Dumbbell Triceps Extension
One-Leg Leg Extensions
One-Leg Leg Press*
One-Leg Leg Curl
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*A brutal addition to your leg workout may include supersetting the traditional leg press with a one-legged leg press. After you perform 8 repetitions on the leg press, take off a few plates and perform another 8 with each individual leg. Try holding the bottom position for a count of 5 to increase the intensity even further.
The same thing goes for the one-leg leg extension. Try beginning with a normal, two-leg leg extension, and then dropping the weight and performing the same number of repetitions with each individual leg.
Additionally, you may try supersetting a unilateral chest press like the one-arm dumbbell chest press with an isolation movement (non-unilateral) like the dumbbell flye during your next chest workout. This is a tough superset (trust me).
So I guess the moral of the story is this: you’ve got two sides. Try using each one, on it’s own, once in a while–particularly if you normally do compound movements or usually shy away from unilateral movements. You’ll find them much more difficult (since you’re not used to them, for one thing). So get excited. There’s still new stuff out there, after all.
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For your questions one, if you’re going to be away from the gym (like going home) for several days (like 4-5), how can you keep up and not lose progress? Or should you treat it as a break?
Ellie,
In general, you shouldn’t really worry if you’re going to take a break for 4-5 days and then come back. The only time you really lose progress is when you either switch from a steady training routine to a haphazard one, where you’re either repeatedly missing workouts (for more than 2 weeks) or not training with any intensity.
But if you want to exercise and you don’t have any access to a gym, consider a circuit made up of body weight moves. Try taking a few from this list (4-5, or more, depending on your fitness level) and performing them back-to-back without rest:
Burpees
Pushups
Pike Pushups
Chair Dips
Close-Grip Pushups
Bodyweight Squats
Boyweight Lunges
Wall Sits
Double Crunch
Russian Twists
Plank
Side Bridge
(or an ab exercise of your choice)
Rest about a minute between circuits and then repeat, for a total of 2 to 4 times, depending on your fitness level.
You can follow this workout with cardiovascular exercise of some sort, if you want.
Hope this helps!
DH
Wow, thanks! You’re super rad.
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