Unilateral Resistance Exercise

6.18.2020

Blog|Strength Training

Unilateral Resistance Exercise

A man working out with pendulum equipment

Coaches and athletes use different resistance exercise regimes to affect their muscle mass and strength. Unilateral resistance exercises are often chosen to specifically target an area to improve performance. It is also common to use unilateral exercises to provide for recovery during the rehabilitation process.

Training with a single limb requires more muscle groups to be involved in stabilization and enhanced motor unit activation to decree more specific strength gains. Reducing the between limb asymmetry allows for greater enhancement of applying force bilaterally.

Rhythmic arm and leg movement during human locomotion is sought after in athletics. Training a single limb periodically is important in optimizing excellence.

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Closed And Open Chain

Open kinetic chain exercises of the lower limb are movements, where the distal segment is unloaded and free to move. The opposite is true of closed kinetic chain exercises, whereby there is enough resistance to prohibit free motion.

Closed kinetic chain exercises are movements such as squats, Pendulum Squat Pro, leg presses and lunges, while open chain exercises are actions like leg curls, leg extensions and the Pendulum Reverse Glute Ham.

The kinetic chain can be understood as interrelated joints and body parts working with one another during motion. This creates a chain of events that affects the movement of neighboring joints and segments.

The advantage of open chain movements is that they tend to be better at isolating muscle and often are selected for specific rehabilitation and used to accentuate performance. While closed chain movements in general would be classified as more functional and closely approximating movements that are used in sport and daily life.

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2-for-2 Method

Some trainers, coaches and athletes use what is called the 2-for-2 Method for increasing training load. The rule is if the trainee can perform two or more repetitions over one’s ‘repetition goal’ in the last set of an exercise, for two consecutive workouts, the weight is added for that particular exercise the next training session.