The Anterior Chain

[rj24]

@Adam1

Excuse me, I figured you meant single leg jump. Most people refer to a standing long jump as a broad jump.

Secondly, you are making assumptions that everyone is like you and that your experience is the same as others. Remember, when n=1, your assumption holds little credibility. The lumbar is not the limiting factor in a squat for everyone else.

If specificity of unilateral is not based on enhanced stability needs, then your other argument of increased activation are, at best, debatable. The amount of CNS drain is inherently applicable only to everything else done in training and to say that less CNS drain is better is just not a valid reason to do one exercise versus another. If there is increased ad & abductor activation involved in single leg movements, those improvements in intensity of activation (amplitude) can, and probably are, easily off set by a much lower loading ability. This was my contention in my last post which you ignored. If this is not the case, I would gladly prefer to be enlightened by a study that shows a comparison and results rather than just you saying “Wrong.” Which is hardly an intelligent way to discuss things. I know you have been having a rather heated argument here with tamfb, but please do not think everyone here is looking to have a childish war of words.

I really want to be done here. Like I said before, I think my case speaks for itself thus far.

I provided studies for the article and now we’re all getting off track. If you want to continue though, I will.

Any studies using unilateral training that might be affected by balance would be done on untrained subjects, and are therefore of little help. Most people are about as coordinated as palsy victims so asking them to do anything short of walk and chew gum at the same time is bound to result in a disaster. As such, we’ll need to rely on real world observations to get to the bottom of this.

If you have access to a hyperextension bench or a 45 degree hyper I want you to work up to a max set of 6-8 reps with one leg. I then want you to work up to a max of 6-8 reps with both legs working simultaneously. Look at the weights used, and don’t forget to factor in roughly 40% of your bodyweight to cover the fact your hip extensors are lifting your upper body as well as the barbell.

If you do this I will guarantee you that the weight used for your unilateral max (including 40% of your BW) will be far in excess of half the weight used in your bilateral test. Not only that, but the unilateral training will leave your hips and hamstrings far more sore the next day. The same would go for any other remotely skilled athlete.

And for lifts like split squats, lunges, and bulgarian squats I’d ask you do them yourself and compare them to squats. There is a much higher strain on all of the hip extensors and rotators as well as the adductors than you would ever encounter in a squat. These are the muscles that matter in a sprint, not the quads (aside from the rectus femori anyways). Not only that, but you’d be utilizing and reinforcing things like the stumble reflex which plays a large part in not just sprinting, but locomotion in general.

And finally, regarding CNS drain, yes, less is always better when talking about general strength work. Why use up CNS resources in the weight room when you could be spending them out on the track or with much more specific means.

That’s it.