One-Sided? You Bet! Unilateral Training For Stability And Strength

Bilateral Vs. Unilateral

While the vast majority of movements we do in the gym are bilateral – two-sided – the vast majority of the movements we perform in life aren't.

But a list of things you’re required to do in life might involve either unilateral activities like holding a load steady with one hand while working on it with the other, or staggered activities like pushing a car (one hand will be in front of the other, one leg will be in front of the other – it’s bilateral, but the loading isn't equal).

And on the sports field? Forget bilateral loading.

The movement might be ‘bilateral’ when you make a staggered movement – when you swing the bat for instance, you hold it in both hands. But that doesn't mean the load is bilateral: it’s way out to one side of the batter, where the bat hits the ball. It’s unilateral.

In no way am I arguing against doing bent rows, bench presses and back squats. For building raw strength, big, heavy bilateral lifts are hard to beat, though proponents of staggered training and unilateral lifts can offer some convincing evidence for their views and we’ll go into some of it later. What I am doing is suggesting that 

Going Beyond Movement Comparisons

The argument goes beyond movement-for-movement comparisons. The best training for a movement isn't always doing that movement, past a certain point – that’s why so many powerlifters back off from deadlifts so often, using rowing movements to build strength that carries over to the deadlift without trashing their recovery. Instead, I want to focus on one of the most important, neglected and misunderstood aspects of training – as well as the most talked about. 

The core.

What Is the Core, Anyway?

Too many people think core training means training the ‘six-pack muscles,’ the rectus abdominus that links the ribcage to the hips along the front of the abdomen. Others think any stability exercise is core training, and they’re half right for the wrong reasons, as we shall see. But the core is more than that. 

Think of the core as a box.  Its base is the pelvic floor muscles, its roof is the diaphragm, and its walls are the rectus abdominus, the transverse obliquii, the quadratus lumborii and the lumbar erectors spinii.

Understood this way, the core basically has two jobs: to produce force and to resist force, and the ability to resist force is by far the most important. When you push that car, or pull that bar, you generate force with your legs and transmit it through the spine to the shoulders, arms and ultimately hands. It all has to go through the core!

It’s power from strong legs left behind before it can get to strong arms and be used, dissipated in body English and absorbed by soft tissues, leading to damage.  It’s bad – but it’s easy to fix.

So let’s fix it.

Core Training By Unilateral Loading

The two best groups of core training methods come from gymnastics and weightlifting. A deadlift or a squat is a great core exercise – in my opinion, not as good as levers, but plenty good nonetheless. But I want to concentrate on how to teach the core to resist bending laterally, and add my two cents’ on the special worth of an eccentric unilateral load for this.

Eccentric means away from the center, so an eccentric load would be one held in front of you at arms’ length, instead of over your center. Due to the position of the arms at the sides of the body, most unilateral loads are eccentric. The special benefit of this is that the further away a load is from the center, the more leverage it exerts, and the more subjectively heavy it is.

So without further ado, let’s get into the four exercises that can be used to build a powerful core by unilateral eccentric loading.

Exercises to Build Strength And Stability With Unilateral Loading

1: Suitcase Deadlift

Stand as you would to perform a deadlift, but with the bar on one side. You’re going to perform a one-handed deadlift, as though you were lifting a suitcase. Don’t let your deadlift form suffer – this needs even more attention to form than a normal deadlift, even though you’ll be moving a lot less weight.

Use fairly high reps – about 8 to 12 or more – and add these on a day when you don’t normally deadlift. You can do them after you've finished deadlifting, but my experience has always been that deadlifts are called that because after you finish a session, you’re dead. I wouldn't try a new movement when my nervous system is fried and I don’t recommend you do either.

2: Suitcase Farmer’s Walk

Farmer’s walks are hands-down the most effective single move for building all-round physical improvement.  They’re simple, brutal and humbling, and I won’t lie: they’re not fun. At all. But they do work; do them regularly and honestly and you’ll see improvements in everything from how often you get injured to how heavy you lift to how fast you can run up the stairs.

Suitcase deadlift a barbell, or other heavy load – some gyms have special farmer’s walk bars, so check or ask.  Set your hips and shoulders, making sure you aren't putting the load where it shouldn't be by standing badly.  Inflate your chest, keep your neck in neutral and… walk. Try for 100 yards each side, and when you get it, up the weight. If you aren't seriously questioning your ability to finish the task by the 50^th yard, either the weight is too low or you’re ex-Marines. Farmer’s walks are fairly easy on your nervous system – but they are hard on your mind.

3: Circus Press

No-one circus presses any more, which is a real shame. Start by cleaning a dumbbell to the racked position. Next, you’re going to press it overhead, but with some leg drive and with one shoulder elevated, with the palm facing inwards, so if you did it two-handed your palms would face each other. It’s not a push press: it’s a way of loading the lats on the pushing side to lift more than you could either push press or strict military press. You should be looking at circus pressing about two thirds of your bilateral overhead press, and the loading on your core is significant.

4: Waiter’s Walks

Waiter’s walks are overhead farmer’s walks. In a farmer’s walk, you deadlift and then walk. In a waiter’s walk, you snatch or overhead press and then walk. The stability demands of holding a weight steady overhead while you walk, while you simultaneously breathe behind a tight abdomen, will give you a steely core. For an added fitness challenge, try holding a bar in one hand for a farmer’s walk, and a kettlebell or dumbbell in the other for a waiter’s walk. 

When you start experimenting with these movements, remember: anything that really challenges the core also has the potential to give you a nasty injury. Start a little lighter than you think you need to, and train safely, with good posture and a braced core. Good luck!