This morning I was listening to a really interesting interview with Gray Cook, the author of Athletic Body in Balance. One of the things he was discussing was the concept that under fatigue, your default exercise form should be that of impeccable technique.
This approach has a lot going for it, primarily in terms of effectiveness and safety. When you are starting to fatique, it is very important that you don’t let your form slip because of the potential for injury. This does not mean that you should never use cheating as a training tool, it means that it is your conscious decision to cheat not your automatic fallback position.
The bottom line of this training approach is that you should not focus on the goal number of reps at the expense of your training technique.
Unilateral training is a great element to have in your training toolbox. Training unilaterally helps you ensure side to side muscular balance, it works the stabilisers more and is very functional for sports training purposes (how often do you run or throw with both legs or arms doing exactly the same thing at the same time??)You are probably doing some unilateral work for your upper body already – using dumbbells for presses and rows etc, but not everybody does unilateral work for their legs. By incorporating lunges or step ups and one leg Romanian deadlifts into your programs will give you plenty of benefits including sparking some new growth.
