One of the best mountain bike training tips to improve your riding is to include a heavy dose of single limb training, also known as unilateral training. While bilateral training is better known and also important, there are several unique advantages that unilateral training offers that makes it a must to include in your program. Before getting into the 4 main advantages of unilateral training for mountain biking, though, let's clear up a common misconception.
Simply using dumbbells does not constitute unilateral training. Even though both limbs are moving independently, using both of them at the same time is still bilateral training. True unilateral training means that you are either doing one side at a time or at least alternating between the two sides. For example, a regular dumbbell bench press is still considered bilateral training while doing only one side at a time falls under the unilateral category.
Now on to the 4 indispensable advantages of unilateral training:
1) Increase pedaling power -- The first advantage of unilateral training is that it is more specific to the function of pedaling a mountain bike. Pedaling occurs one leg at a time with each leg working independently of each other. Since unilateral exercises also require each limb to act alone it only makes sense to include these exercises in your program.
They also ensure that there is not a strength imbalance between your legs. You may find that one leg is significantly stronger than the other, meaning that you are getting less horsepower out of the weaker leg. This makes your pedaling far less than optimal and something that can only be discovered and addressed through unilateral training.
2) Injury rehab and prevention -- Another advantage of unilateral training is that it helps to rehab and prevent injuries. After an injury it is extremely common to find that the injured side is weaker than the non-injured limb. When this happens it is impossible to restore that balance without using unilateral training. Even if you are not rehabbing an injury, making sure that you have balance between your limbs is also one of the best ways to decrease your future injury potential.
3) Recruit more muscles -- Without getting too technical into anatomy, when performing unilateral exercises you are forced to use stabilization muscles that are simply not recruited during bilateral training (and no, standing on a wobble board or balance ball does not do the same thing). As an example, unilateral leg exercises require that the adductors and abductors (the inner and outer thigh muscles) to fire in a synchronized manner in order to maintain balance.
In fact, this is the main reason that many people feel so unbalanced when starting unilateral leg exercises; they simply have not used those muscles in that way before and the body does not know how to efficiently accomplish the movement. Getting the body used to the demands placed on it by unilateral training will make for more fluid, athletic movement on the bike.
4) Build strength in a "spine friendly" manner -- Just like anything in life, overuse of something will start to cause problems and while the squat and deadlift are great, after a while they will start to put undo stress on the spinal column. Using a unilateral version of these lifts will not only give you all of the previously mentioned advantages, they will allow you to do so with literally less than half the stress on the spinal column. Over the years this will add up to far fewer back problems and injuries. This aspect will also breathe new life into the training program of those who have suffered a back injury since it allows them to train hard enough to elicit strength gains in a way that does not greatly increase their chance of re-injury.
Add all of these up and you must include unilateral exercises if you are serious about getting everything that you can out of your training program. Some of the best unilateral exercises are the unilateral dumbbell bench press, unilateral shoulder press, unilateral deadlift, Bulgarian split squat and the unilateral squat (or if you have the strength and mobility a full pistol squat)
One of the best ways to introduce unilateral training into your program is to replace one of your normal training days with a unilateral training day, performing nothing unilateral exercises on that day. Be forewarned, though, since unilateral training will produce some muscle soreness in places that you did not know you had and has also been known to increase performance to previously unattainable levels.
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