
Fortunately, unilateral calisthenics moves take all the guesswork out of the equation, allowing you to turn on these key muscle areas when they matter most: when you’re OUTSIDE of the gym and NOT in a workout state of mind. Having visible abs is considered the holy grail in the field of “bro science.” However, don’t neglect your glutes, back muscles and psoas muscle group when training your entire core. As long as you sustain a quality over quantity mindset, you can really use one-sided movements to your advantage. Finally, you could split up the work into halves, thirds or quarters depending on your target number of reps. You might also find alternating between sides throughout a given “set” to be beneficial-particularly when performed with a “flow” mindset. For example, you could begin working your non-dominant side while you are more energetic, and finish on your stronger side to elicit a healthier adaptation response. More specifically, once you become aware of which side is less strong, you have a few options for splitting up the total volume (i.e. The cool thing about training one side of the body at a time is that it encourages you to do more work without exceeding your capacity to recover. Hopefully after going through this list, you too will find new motivation or be able to put previous advice into healthier perspective by balancing movement from both sides of the body more effectively. The following list vivifies the healthy domino effect of this “one side fits all” training strategy-meaning that, once one of these motives is set in place, you will set off a chain reaction for the rest. The good news is, no matter where you’re at right now in your fitness journey, you can have the best of both worlds-catering to both your wants AND your needs-by including unilateral calisthenics movements in the first half of every workout. This puts many well-informed coaches in a tough position when it comes to attracting new business and ultimately selling their training philosophy.

The total number of repetitions take more overall time to perform (which can lead to impatience), they don’t allow the practitioner to add a sexy amount of external load (which can influence ego), and they’re significantly more challenging on both the mind and body to perform (which can make poor form inevitable). Well, there are three understandable reasons why some fitness gurus still don’t prescribe one-sided exercises in their training programs. If there is such a promising range of benefits from their application, why don’t we see more single-sided exercises being performed by others on a regular basis?

These positive changes are especially noticeable when you consider the value of starting your workout on a high note with such moves-which is arguably the most important habit you can develop to increase workout productivity. Single-Sided Bodyweight Exercises.īehold, The Domino Effect: One Side Fits AllĪlso known as unilateral movements, focusing on one side at a time with the upper or lower extremities has been shown to play a key role in promoting equilibrium, transforming mental and physical ideals into reality, overcoming current health setbacks, and preventing future issues from happening.

While a case could probably be made for any of these choices, the answer that has the greatest return on your time investment is C.

What’s the one thing missing from most fitness programs that translates into extraordinary progress?
