Unilateral training: build balanced muscle with this specialized, one-sided workout strategy. - Smart Training

Men's Fitness, June, 2002 by Doug Chernack

Almost all successful duos--Oscar and Felix; Sonny and Cher; Martin and Lewis--call it quits after a while. And if your strength gains haven't kept pace with your workout partner's, it can happen to you too, especially if he feels you're no longer holding up your end. When that happens, you have two choices: Move to France and become its national comedy treasure, or nut up, discover what's impeding your progress, and take steps to earn back your partner's respect.

One of the first things you might consider is whether or not your dominant body side is leaving you with weakened, underdeveloped areas of your body, and thus preventing you from making consistent and balanced muscle and strength gains. Fortunately, there's an easy way out of this quandary, and it's called unilateral training. It targets those weak areas and activates nerves and fibers that force muscles to adapt and grow. Interested? Keep reading.

OUT ON A LIMB

Each of us has a dominant body side. We throw better from one side, we kick better from one side, and, likewise, we're stronger on one side. Ever tried tossing a football with your non-throwing arm? It's a clumsy effort that would make even John Elway look like Elton John. When we lift weights bilaterally, i.e., move the weight with both arms at once, our dominant side takes over during the exercise, causing a disproportion, however slight, in workout balance. So even though you think you're working both sides of the body equally, in reality, the dominant side controls the exercise.

"What happens to your body over time from bilateral training is that, as your dominant limbs take over, the symmetry between your two sides becomes adversely affected and causes the weaker side of your body to drag," says William J. Kraemer, Ph.D. "This, in turn, can hinder your physical development and athletic performance." In addition, by having one side of the body so much stronger than the other, you're risking injury every time you hit the weights. But before you panic and attempt sets of 100 one-armed push-ups, consider unilateral training.

In a nutshell, unilateral training involves moving one limb at a time in a desired direction. In exercise terms, that means focusing specific movements on the weaker limbs of the body to increase strength and reinforce neuromuscular coordination. The argument can be made that, since you are lifting a certain load with opposite sides of your body, any type of dumbbell exercise is a unilateral one, as is any type of cable exercise that has you controlling different loads with each hand (e.g., cable flyes). For our purposes, though, we'll define unilateral exercise as using only one side of the body at a time to lift a load.

For example, when completing a set of lat pull-downs, you'll use a D-handle and pull the weight using just one arm at a time. After you complete one set, you'll switch sides and complete a set with the other arm.

THE MOVEMENTS

As defined, then, unilateral training means moving a load with one side of the body at a time. Within this principle, you can create a number of exercises. However, some are definitely better than others.

Unilateral exercises can be broken up into four different categories: dumbbell, barbell, cable and machine. Basic form considerations should remain the same as in any exercise:

* Abs tight.

* Lower back tight and slightly arched.

* Shoulders back and down, chest out.

* Feet placed firmly on the floor for seated movements. For standing movements, knees slightly bent, feet slightly farther than shoulder width.

THE WORKOUT

Instead of creating exercises consisting entirely of unilateral movements, Kraemer recommends integrating unilateral exercises into preexisting workouts. "While unilateral exercises target specific muscles, incorporating bilateral exercises into your workout is important if you want to hit all the muscles of your body," he says. Make sure to try a few of the movements before adding unilateral training to your workouts.

"You obviously know whether you're right- or left-handed, but try lifting weights with one arm and one leg," Kraemer adds. "Determine where your weaknesses are and use unilateral training to strengthen them."

Once you've established your target areas, you're ready to train. Starting out, use no weight and practice your technique. When you're feeling more comfortable, incorporate some of the exercises into your workout. "A good guideline for a moderate unilateral workout is to include three sets of one primary, bilateral exercise with two sets of two different unilateral assistant exercises," says Kraemer.

Here's what a sample back workout would look like:

* Bent-over barbell row

* Unilateral pull-down

* Unilateral seated row

Remember, though, since you're only using one side of your body at a time, your workouts are going to take a little longer. For example, a chest workout would include three sets of eight to 10 reps of a bench press followed by three sets of eight to 10 reps of unilateral incline Hammer presses, followed by two sets of 10 to 12 reps of unilateral flyes on the pec-dec machine. After completing a movement with one side of your body, move directly to the other side without resting. Once you're done training the other side, rest one minute before beginning a new set.