High school coaches commented that I had no idea what I was doing and ridiculed the way we train athletes. Change can be difficult so I don’t blame them. The squat has been one of the core lifts found in almost every successful football training program in America since forever, yet here I was telling athletes to scrap the exercise.

Is the back squat losing favor in strength training programs designed for athletes?

As I watched our athletes train my intuition told me something was wrong.

How often in team sports do we run or jump with two legs? Not often; I can think of at tip-off and the occasional 2 handed dunk in basketball.

From a training perspective, heavy squats didn’t seem to replicate what I was seeing on the field or court.

In January of 2009 I tried an experiment. I took our strongest athlete who could front squat 230 pound for 3 reps, cut his bar weight in half, and told him to do as many reps as possible on one leg.

The result shocked me… he did 14 reps!

That’s when the puzzle started to come together for me…

In the past, when spotting an athlete on a “max effort” back squat, the mechanical point of failure was always at the low back. The legs appeared to still have juice in them, but the back just could not support the weight. What this told me was that the back was the limiting factor, not the legs.

In the past, our philosophy was, “to maximize performance (speed & jumping) squat heavy or go home.” Needless to say, we had a lot of sore backs in the gym for a few years. We bought into the clan mentality and trained athletes like everybody else.

Thinking Outside the Box

Today it’s a lot different around here. It’s no longer about how much weight can you lift, but how to best prepare you to be faster, stronger and more explosive on the field. Since we’ve revamped our performance program to train exclusively on one leg, our athletes have had zero back issues and have improved in almost every performance test we’ve throw at them (vertical jump, 40-yard dash, pro shuttle, etc.).

A recent study in the Journal of Sports Rehabilitation has validated our programming solution:

“the single leg squat variations may be better for performance enhancement while simultaneously reducing risk of injury to the low back when lifting even moderate resistances.” [McCurdy, K. ET al (2010) Comparison of Lower Extremity EMG Between the 2-Leg Squat and Modified Single-Leg Squat in Female Athletes. JSR. 19(1)]

The study also discovered that the rear foot elevated split squat [video below] produced greater EMG activity (i.e. muscular stress) in both the gluteus medius and hamstrings compared to the 2-leg squat; two commonly undertrained muscles and critical for running at top speed.

In the video above, baseball player Wes Piersall performs 10 single leg squats with 160 pounds on his back which equates to a 420 pound back squat… do you think he’s fast? Watch him track down a fly ball in the outfield.

To improve your speed and jumping ability make single-leg training a staple in your strength training program; you’ll keep your back healthy while packing on some serious muscle and maximizing performance.

In addition to helping athletes increase their speed, single-leg training is recognized as a key in knee injury prevention. The video below is the first exercise we introduce to all our new clients. The split squat must be performed with no upper body movement and full range of motion. We use soft foam pads below to guide our athletes to proper depth.

An easy progression to include in your program is performing 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions for 3-4 weeks. Choose a heavy enough weight that forces your body to “work” but not so heavy that your form is compromised.