Want to level up your workout without adding more weight? Unilateral exercises (single-side movements) are a great way to make exercises more challenging and you don’t need extra equipment to do them.
These exercises offer plenty of benefits. Targeting one side of the body at a time isolates muscles, which can help correct muscle imbalances, and practicing single-leg moves can help you develop core stability and balance.
If you want to try them for yourself, I recommend this six-move weighted unilateral workout from certified trainer Stacey Roberts. She performs them with a yoga block, which increases her range of motion. Scroll down to see the full routine.
How to do the workout
Perform each exercise for 12 repetitions and complete three sets in total. Don’t forget to warm up first and spend at least 5-10 minutes doing a cool down afterwards.
You will need a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell and an optional yoga block for the workout. Roberts is using a 25lb kettlebell but she advises that you adjust the weight as needed. If you don’t have a yoga block, you can use a thick book or weight plate instead.
The moves are:
- Offset squat side lift
- Single Romanian deadlift with rotation
- Calf raise
- Elevated reverse lunge
- Elevated single bridge
- Seated leg lift-overs
Why range of motion matters
Roberts uses a yoga block to increase range of motion (ROM). By elevating one side of the body, she’s able to move deeper into unilateral exercises like the offset squat and reverse lunge.
Working with greater ROM can help you build strength, increasing the amount of muscle fibers recruited during your workout and improving muscle activation.
A systematic review published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning supports this. The review suggests that exercising with full ROM (rather than partial ROM) is beneficial for improving everything from strength and muscle size to speed and power.
Benefits of unilateral exercises
Most of us will naturally have one side of the body stronger than the other. The dominant side will tend to overcompensate for the weaker one, which can cause a difference in strength between the two sides. Isolating the muscles on one side of the body can help you avoid overtraining on your dominant side, which is why I’m a big fan of unilateral exercises
According to a study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, they’re a good way to improve core strength too. The study found that single-limb exercises activate the core more effectively than bilateral ones, because when you are only using one side of your body the core has to work harder to maintain balance.
