Episode 1690 - Split squat science #PTonICE Daily Show

Dr. Guillermo Contreras // #FitnessAthleteFriday // www.ptonice.com 


In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Fitness Athlete faculty member Guillermo Contreras dives into all things split squats and shares its utility for improving lower extremity strength asymmetry. Also discussed: progressions for the most novice up to the most advanced of athletes and clients in the clinic and gym
Whether for the quads, glutes, hamstrings, the split squat is one of the exercises we “love to hate” most
Take a listen to the episode or check out the show notes at www.ptonice.com/blog
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
GUILLERMO CONTRERAS
Here we go, gang. Thank you so much. Sorry for the little bit of a delay. Had some technical difficulties all morning for myself dealing with some stuff here on the back end. But happy to be with you here on the PT on ICE Daily Show on the best day of the week, Fitness Athlete Friday, the day where we talk all things fitness athlete, loading progressions, getting strong, getting fit, all the good stuff. We are today talking about split squat science. And it's more of the applicability of the science of the split squat more than going into the deep, deep nitty gritty about the split squat. And the reason for this topic today is many times in the courses of the fitness athlete, whether it be the L1, L2, or even in the live courses, when we are breaking down movements like the back squat, like the front squat, movements that we tend to use in the CrossFit realm more than anything else, movements that we really preferentially push towards to get maximum loading of bony tissue for bony adaptations, muscle tissue for strength gains. The squat is how we're going to do it. However, when we're breaking down the movement pattern for the individuals in our courses, or the individuals in front of us, or our athletes and clients, many times we're going to see some deficits. We're going to see some asymmetries, whether one leg is just not pushing as much as the other, one leg caves in, whether one quad or hamstring or glute or whatever it may be is more developed than the other due to a previous history of injury. as well as also just when someone tends to shift and put more weight into one side versus the other. There can be a myriad of reasons for it. We don't know what's going on. That's why we want to assess things and not just assume anything. But once we get through that assessment phase, Bam! That's when we can see the benefits of some single leg work to improve leg strength deficiencies or asymmetries. And this topic is brought on by a recent study in 2023 that came out looking at leg strength asymmetry in basketball players. So strength asymmetries as well as the ability to kind of change direction quickly. And what they did in that study is they found that a three-to-one non-dominant-to-dominant strength training program was optimal, I could say, or they worked really, really well to improve that asymmetry in one leg versus the other. And one of the movements that they used in order to load individuals as well as kind of uncover where the weaknesses were was the loaded Bulgarian split squat. For those unfamiliar with the Bulgarian split squat, I am simply in a lunge position here. I'm away from a surface I can put my foot on behind me. So I step up as I'm going to do a lunge. My foot goes up on a bench or a box or something elevated behind me. I then hold a barbell or dumbbells or kettlebells, whatever it may be, on my back. And I simply g