Workouts getting a little stale? Not getting pumps like you used to? Maybe it’s time to take things “one at a time!” Unilateral training, or training one side of the body at a time, is a great way to step up the intensity level of any workout as well as push past strength and size plateaus! Sure you have done single arm triceps extensions or concentration curls, but have you ever tried single-leg leg presses, one arm overhead dumbbell presses, or even single arm lat pull downs? If not, you are missing out on a training technique that can quickly cause a growth spurt in every body part! Working one side of the body at a time will not only help you focus even harder on the muscle you are trying to work, but it will enable your nervous system to force an even harder contraction into the muscle than standard training ever could. In addition, unilateral training can help you overcome strength imbalances that you may have between your right and left sides. You see, if your right bicep is stronger than your left, for example, whenever you do a barbell curl, the right arm will usually end up taking some of the stress of off the left one. This only serves to enhance the strength imbalance, as well as cheat your left bicep out of growth! However, by working one limb at a time you will force the weaker muscle to do all the work on its own, stimulating it to get stronger and larger! Another benefit of unilateral training is that it will also make you stronger on all of your two arm/two leg lifts because of the evening out of strength between your two sides. I have witnessed clients of mine add 100 lbs on their two-leg leg press after doing the single leg version for just 4 weeks. Similarly, another client of mine improved his military press by 25 lbs after utilizing single arm dumbbell presses for just 3 weeks! I am not saying that you should make your training exclusively unilateral, but I personally try to include at least one single-sided exercise for each body part workout. Here are a few examples of unilateral exercises you may not have tried:

CHEST: single arm cable cross over, single arm machine press.
BACK: single arm lat pull downs, single arm seated row.
DELTS: single arm upright row, single arm press.
QUADS: single leg extension, single-leg leg press.
HAMS: single-leg stiff deadlift, single-leg lying leg curl.

So, at your next workout give single-limb training a try and you may just see double the results!