Developing a Balanced Lower Body Strength Training Programme

Whilst this blog is hardly reinventing the wheel I felt it was something worthwhile putting down on paper for everyone to see. One key thing when developing a programme is to make sure that all the key movements and areas of the body are covered. Failure to do so can lead to problems later down the line with regards to muscle imbalances both bilaterally and anteriorly and posteriorly.

So here we go then and first up we are going to start with lower body which I like to break down into three areas:

Bilateral Hip Dominant Exercises

Hip Dominant exercises are those that tend to pivot around the hip joint they are crucial in training the posterior musculature of both the legs and lower back with the glutes, hamstrings and lower back being heavily involved in hip dominant exercises. Good examples of hip dominant exercises are and deadlift variation e.g. sumo deadlifts, stiff leg deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts etc. Other exercises for the more advanced athlete could be barbell hip thrusts or band resisted hip thrusts.

 Bilateral Knee Dominant Exercises

Knee Dominant exercises tend to pivot around the Knee joint and as opposed to hip dominant exercises and place more stress on the anterior musculature of the legs (quads). In all knee dominant exercises though the posterior musculature of the legs and back is still heavily involved.  Good examples of knee dominant exercises are: front squats, back squats and goblet squats.

Single Leg Exercises (Knee and Hip dominant)

Finally there are single leg exercises, these can be either hip dominant or knee dominant but they train the lower limb complex unilaterally and engage stabilising muscles (glute med. Adductors and Quadratus lumborum) which are not engaged in bilateral exercises. Examples of  knee dominant single leg exercises are any lunging variation, split squats and single leg box squats. Hip Dominant Single Leg Exercises would include Single Leg Deadlifts and slideboard exercises. Other unilateral exercises include sled pushes and heavy farmers walks.

For a more in depth view of single leg training check out this classic T-Nation article by Mike Boyle:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_case_for_single_limb_training

Structuring your programme

With regards to giving your programme balance I would recommend a  roughly equal split between each area leaving 25% Bilateral Hip Dominant, 25% Bilateral Knee Dominant, 25% Unilateral Hip Dominant and 25% bilateral hip knee dominant. Whilst this is not an exact science (there is currently fierce debate between leading strength coaches) if you can fit in a roughly equal balance of these in your weekly training I feel that you’re unlikely to go too far wrong.

Anyway I hope you've enjoyed reading through this post, I intend to put another post up over christmas with regards to creating a balanced upper body training programme.