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Start To Finish

When you train on the Pendulum Seated Squat for the first time, you immediately notice this leg press is different from any other that you have been on. You feel the muscles contracting not near the knee or hips but in the center of your thigh and the muscular feeling continues throughout the movement. Once the exercise is completed you know your legs are Getting Strong and the exercise machine you just trained on is unique.

Pendulum Seated Squat

The quadricep’s rectus femoris muscle occupies the middle of the thigh and covers most of the other three quad muscles: vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius and vastus medialis.  The rectus femoris is often referred to as the “kicking muscle” as it crosses the knee and hip and is responsible for forceful knee extension. 

Understanding this, coaches have athletes who need to be or are powerful kickers in their sport to do the following movements, Pendulum Leg Extensions (for primary extensors of knee joint) then the Pendulum Seated Squat (development of the entire thigh) and the following ‘finishing movement’ (isolation of anterior hip).

Hip Isolation 

The finishing movement is done by the athlete lying supine on the floor and bringing a resisted band deeply towards his or her chest for a prescribed number of repetitions. A great way to Get Strong and get a kick out of training.

The Significance of Exercise Selection

One of the challenging problems faced by coaches and trainers is the issue of how to optimally choose exercises to maximize training effects when instituting a resistance training program. Typically, exercises in the weight room can be categorized into either unilateral or bilateral movements.

Unilateral exercises are movements involving one limb or one side of the body, while bilateral movements are executed with both limbs evenly. How do we select?

The good news is that there has been extensive studies on unilateral and bilateral training and the ability to improve athletic performance.

Biology of Sport, a peer-reviewed journal of sports & exercise sciences in September of 2022 published, Effects of unilateral vs. bilateral resistance training interventions on measures of strength, jump, linear and change of direction speed: a systematic review and meta-analysis. They concluded,

“Both unilateral and bilateral resistance training improve athletic performance; with respect to all performance measures, overall effect showed no difference between unilateral resistance training and bilateral resistance training…”

Researchers also concluded in their findings that though differences could not be considered scientifically significant they found that unilateral resistance training was superior for enhancing unilateral jump performance and bilateral resistance training was superior for enhancing bilateral strength performance.

Pendulum Strength recognizes that there are needs, benefits and uses of bilateral and unilateral movements; returning to play, surgical rehabilitation, correction of imbalances and muscular adaptations are all important considerations in athletics. Winning in competition can come down to the most minor detail and the smallest of margins and this is SIGNIFICANT in the pursuit of excellence.

Pendulum Seated Squat Pro