The importance of unilateral movements

We perform unilateral movements, or single sided movements, every single day without even thinking about it. Ever single time you take a step, you are stepping with one foot at a time. When you get up off of the ground, you are performing a lunge, which is a unilateral movement.

Unilateral movements are so good for correcting muscle imbalances, evening out our bodies. If you’ve noticed that you are stronger on one side of your body than the other, that’s normal. But it doesn’t have to be. We usually are stronger on one side and not the other because we typically have a dominant side. This is the side you grab things with first or step with first and it usually gets more exercise than the other side.

To fix this pattern, and even yourself out, you should perform unilateral movement in your exercise routine. Some unilateral movements include, lunges, single leg romanian deadlifts (pictured above), step ups, bulgarian split squats, any upper body work with dumbbells, to just name a few.

So if you aren’t incorporating these types of movements into your exercise routine, here’s your sign.

-Jess