Many people still consider unilateral training to be more “functional.” I can see why, as several tasks and sports are performed unilaterally.
But there is a time and a place for bilateral training too. In fact, bilateral training can be very useful for the right person at the right time.
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#AskMikeReinold Episode 242: Unilateral Vs. Bilateral Training
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Show Notes
Transcript
Jonathan:
Steve from Michigan asks, I still hear a lot about unilateral exercises being more functional than bilateral exercises. Do you think bilateral exercises are not as functional or helpful to perform? Is there a place for both?
Dave Tilley:
Mike Boyle has entered the chat.
Mike Reinold:
I like it. I know, right? We got to be careful with that, right? That’s hilarious.
Mike Reinold:
Yeah, great question, Steve. I like it, Jonathan, way to go, man. That was a good question. I’m really impressed with that.
Lenny Macrina:
Well read.
Mike Reinold:
That was awesome, that was well read. Credit where credit due, my man.
Mike Reinold:
But yeah, so unilateral vs. bilateral. We get this question from time to time, and it comes up. What I liked about how Steve presented it though, is that, how unilateral is more functional. And more so, the second half of that question, that’s implying that bilateral is not functional. And I think that’s the interesting topic. So interesting. Anybody do anything with both legs today?
Lenny Macrina:
I know when I get off the toilet, I get off with one leg.
Diwesh Poudyal:
So squat.
Lenny Macrina:
I only do single leg squats in my life, because that’s all I need.
Mike Reinold:
I’m seeing a viral Instagram challenge, right?
Dave Tilley:
We need the squatty potty.
Mike Reinold:
Can you get off the toilet with just one foot? I like that.
Mike Reinold:
Interesting, yeah, we definitely, we’re reciprocal animals. We reciprocate our extremities quite a bit, but I don’t know, I’d be interested to hear. So, from our approach at Champion, I do think, at Champion, our approach to performance training and even our therapy concepts, is geared a lot towards function and optimizing people, and enhancing their performance. So this is a good question to us, because I feel that way. So Diwesh, I’m going to throw it at you for this beginning of this question. And obviously, I want to hear your thoughts on the question of the challenge. But as probably one of the performance centers in the country that cares more about full athleticism and optimizing function, and stuff like that. At one of those centers, do we perform bilateral exercises?
Diwesh Poudyal:
Yes, we do.
Mike Reinold:
Okay, good. All right. Great episode. Steve, thanks so much for the question.
Diwesh Poudyal:
See you later.
Mike Reinold:
Yeah, so we performed bilateral. So when you’re doing a program for someone, Dewey, does that ever come up in your mind, and how do you approach the concept of function in bilateral training?
Diwesh Poudyal:
So I think function has to be specific, also. Meaning, specific to the sport and the goal. So if I have a field sport athlete, core sport athlete that clearly does a lot of their athletic movements on a single leg. Like running, jumping, sprinting, and all that stuff, where they probably do need a little bit more of a unilateral emphasis on their training at certain times a year. That does not mean that bilateral is no longer functional for them. It just means that, maybe I give them a little bit less of a dosage of bilateral stuff at a certain time of the year. But then I flip the coin on the other side, and you say, all right, I have a powerlifter, an Olympic weight lifter. And we do have people that come in that want to do that as their sport. Their main functional movement is a bilateral squat, or a deadlift, or clean, or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like, they have to be a little bit more heavy on the bilateral movement, but they do get a small dosage of unilateral stuff, so that we can continue to work on just keeping general athleticism there, keeping movement variability high, so that we can learn to move and control tri-planer. So the answer is both.
Mike Reinold:
I like that. And the answer is almost always going to be both, but I think that’s a great start to this question, here is that, figure out the tasks that are specific for the individual and what’s unique for them, and make sure you’re training the tasks that are specific to them. If you want to be truly functional, you have to include those things. So I think we all agree that a lot of people need unilateral training. I think we all agree that a lot of people need bilateral training. So let me throw this question to the group, then now at this point, is saying, is there a place for doing bilateral in a unilateral athlete? And I don’t even know what that means, because we’re all… You know what I mean. But let’s say somebody that’s like a field-based athlete that’s running around. Why would working on bilateral strength be a benefit for this person? What do you think, Dewey?
Diwesh Poudyal:
The way that I see it is, we always start from general-end to build the engine. So if we put an emphasis on bilateral training, for example, squats, deadlifts, whatever variation of that movement it is, we build the ability to produce a little bit more force through a bilateral stance. And we teach our body to stack everything together, and have control in sagittal plane. So for a lot of beginners and even more advanced athletes, I always say, if you own the sagittal plane, you’ll have better possible competency in the frontal plane, transverse plane. So bilateral movements tend to be more sagittal. So you own sagittal plane. You’re probably going to have a better outcome or output potential for unilateral, and for frontal plane, rotational plane.
Mike Reinold:
Makes sense.
Diwesh Poudyal:
So that’s one end that I think of, as far as why we would even emphasize bilateral training. And then the other aspect is, produce high levels of force. You have a bigger engine, so that you can, when you put emphasis on unilateral stuff, potentially have greater output.
Mike Reinold:
Right. And I think a good thing that Diwesh has highlighted, I think that was really cool, is that how unilateral training can benefit bilateral performance, and bilateral training can benefit unilateral performance. And I think we have to keep that in mind.
Mike Reinold:
For other people in the crowd, even in somebody that’s such a field-based person that needs unilateral stuff, is there a benefit of just saying that, we do bilateral just for pure load, pure tension, pure strength gains. And then carry that over to unilateral. To me, that seems like an obvious reason to use it. What do you guys think? Maybe Dan or even Dave, with some of your backgrounds with this stuff, what do you think, Dan? I think you’d be a good person to answer that. Like, even in somebody that requires a lot of unilateral agility, is just the benefit of bilateral strength. What does that do for your athletes?
Dan Pope:
I think, for bilateral movement, you can recruit a lot of muscle fibers very quickly. Especially when we’re trying to go for speed as well as load, which is recruiting a lot all at once. You see that a ton in sport. When we’re trying to be powerful, we have to do that. I think the other piece is that, even if you’re playing in a field sport or court sport, you’ll see athletes, when they cut, if it’s a very aggressive cut, often times it’s with two legs. We’re pushing off of two legs when you’re jumping. I think that sometimes, we’re discounting that these athletes need use two feet at the same time for a lot of the tasks that are important for the sport. Especially for super, super high-level tasks. So if one leg is not going to do the job, you might have to plant both legs and change directions. So I think it’s going to be beneficial, because you’re teaching people how to produce force very quickly, get all those muscle fibers on board really fast, with a high load. So it mimics a lot of things in sport. Plus we need to work with two legs sometimes. That’s actually functional for a lot of parts of those sports.
Mike Reinold:
Yeah, I like that. What’s up, Dewey?
Diwesh Poudyal:
Yeah, Dan just reminded me of something. I think one important thing at this point, too, is a lot of times when we think of unilateral versus bilateral, I think a lot of people think like a squat, and then like a lunge, or RFE split squat, or some sort of split pelvis position. To me, the other end of it, which is true unilateral training, meaning a pure single like squat, or a pure single leg RDL. And then the stuff in between, that’s your split pelvis, like a split stance RDL or RFE split squat. And I think using all three within that spectrum of bilateral, split pelvis, and true unilateral, the combination of all three of those is probably going to make you have better athleticism. Like Dan’s mentioning, like planting with two feet on a cut. That’s probably going to be more beneficial from a split pelvis position. Stuff of that nature.
Mike Reinold:
Okay.
Diwesh Poudyal:
So keeping in mind that all three are to be thought of.
Mike Reinold:
Yeah, it makes sense. And I think the part of that cracks me up, when somebody talks about a lunge, a split squat, a rear foot elevated, something like that, how they consider that unilateral quite a bit. And maybe this is because we work with some rehabbers too, sometimes, but tell somebody with a patellar tendinopathy, if their rear leg’s working during a rear foot elevated split squat, when they have excruciating pain on their patellar tendon. Like, most of these unilateral drills that we’re doing with a split squat stance, like a split pelvis position, like Diwesh just said, is you’re using a considerable amount of force and strength on your rear leg too. It is not just a forward leg type drill. I mean, that seems kind of obvious to me.
Mike Reinold:
Anybody else have any thoughts, and what I would ask, maybe for the rehab crowd, from a rehab perspective, is how do we approach bilateral versus unilateral in somebody that’s postoperative, or an injury, or something like that. Anyone want to jump? Dave, you got any thoughts on that?
Dave Tilley:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I was going to say, sometimes we’re intentionally going the opposite direction from like, trying to load bilateral first, because we want to take weight-bearing off of someone’s leg. So sometimes I think that people can’t tolerate single leg exercises when they’re like, the tissue, or a graft or a surgery, or an injury, is just not really able to feel comfortable with all that weight on one leg. So there’s a lot of times when we’re intentionally putting someone on a force plate and saying, make sure it’s 50-50, or make sure it’s a certain amount of weight.
Dave Tilley:
So I think it’s an interesting angle you’re coming at it. From a performance side or not, because sometimes you might just be really limited in somebody’s ability to tolerate some of those single leg stuff. So we’ll do kettlebell deadlifts, and goblet squats, and regular squats for a full six week cycle, just because the tissue itself can’t handle it. And then we increase a single leg.
Dave Tilley:
And it’s the same thing with plyometrics. We almost always start somebody on double-legged pogo hops and scissor hops, because it’s not as much force over loaded. And then you work your way to single leg. So I think it’s all about, as Dan often says, it’s all about the context and the goals of the athlete, and where they’re coming from. It’s not about just trying to pick all the exercises you want to do right away.
Mike Reinold:
That’s great, yeah, I like it. I think that’s a good way of saying it.
Dave Tilley:
[crosstalk 00:12:32] Mom and dad are fighting.
Lenny Macrina:
In my head, I see a lot of ACL patients. So I’m systemizing, more or less, what I’m doing. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time a new ACL patient comes in. So the first four weeks is going to be basic stuff. Table stuff, range of motion, get the knee to calm down. After four, six weeks after an ACL, I’m doing the bilateral stuff. I’m initiating a goblet squat, I’m beginning to do a kettlebell deadlift. So two legged stuff, because I know that they’re going to have to shift to the good side, to at least feel better about doing the exercise.
Lenny Macrina:
But after about a month or six weeks, my next program after the two legged stuff, is intentionally single leg stuff, because they can handle it. Single leg squat or step down, whatever you want to call it. Maybe a single leg RDL. I’m intentionally adding that into the program, because now I feel that they can now better isolate, obviously on that side, on the ACL side. But leading up to that, they were doing four to six weeks of a bilateral movement to help them on weight to the other side. But it’s all kind of built in. That’s how my ACL programs kind of all run.
Lenny Macrina:
And then after that, now I’m seeing how they’re doing, how they’re progressing, I’m testing them a little. And now I’m going to increase capacity. So now I want to do heavy, heavy. Really, this is where the meat of it comes in, is really getting heavier. So probably doing some kind of a front squat or back squat. So a two legged movement is coming back into the program, but they’re also going to be doing a single leg stuff mixed in as well. So it kind of turns into a hybrid program after that.
Mike Reinold:
And what a great way, right there, that we demonstrated how unilateral athletes can use bilateral strength to just get load. let’s get after a squat, like heavy, a deadlift, heavy. And then see some carry over to some of our single leg training. That’s a great way. But then, what a great flip right there, from Lenny saying, look, somebody has isolated weakness in one leg. Let’s make sure we’re drilling that isolated unilateral training for that one person, to address their specific weakness.
Lenny Macrina:
Right.
Mike Reinold:
So again, you can see context, like Dave said and Dan said, the context of what they need to use it in, is super important. So you know, I think that’s a great episode right there. Where if you actually try to summarize a little bit of the benefits. And like everything else, we got to use both. I think that’s the key here. Dewey said it really well at the beginning, there’s a time to do more of one versus the other for almost every person. But look, as humans, as long as we’re going to reciprocate and we’re also going to do bilateral stuff, then you should probably train it that way.
Mike Reinold:
So good question, good answers, I appreciate it. Again, if you have more questions, head to mikereinold.com, click on that podcast link. Be sure to go to iTunes, Spotify. Rate, review, and subscribe. And we will see you on the next episode. Thank you.
