How to Alter your Split Squat to Get Exactly what you Need out of it!
/Many look at the traditional split squat and think: “This will help my legs get stronger.” And for the most part, the masses are correct, the split squat will help your legs get stronger. My questions for you is, how do you load it? How split is your split squat? How deep should you go? What are your feet doing? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then you might want to stick around for a nice read :)
One of our favorite lower body movements, the split squat, biases load to the lead leg of movement. So, if your right leg is in front, it is doing the majority of the work. In our training book, this qualifies as a unilateral lower body movement, specifically: a unilateral squat pattern. This distinction is crucial, as the joint position of the lower limbs dictates what muscles will do more and/ or less work.
There are about 1.5 million different ways this split squat can be modified. To save you the trouble of learning all of those variations, let’s talk about 3 big ones: Dumbbell (DB) Contralateral (opposite side) Front Heel Elevated (FHE) Split Squat, DB Ipsilateral (same side) Rear Foot Elevated (RFE) Split Squat, and DB Goblet Split Squat.
Placing the DB in the hand opposite to the working leg does a couple of things. One of those things is that the load placement biases hip eccentric external rotation (ER), and early stance mechanics. Pair this heel elevation, and boom! You feed into that bias even more so.
Biasing heel strike/ early stance mechanics is a new fan favorite of ours because so many people are “stuck” on their toes, or in a late phase of the gait cycle. Getting athletes to feel their heel allows the body to actively supinate their foot, thus giving them the ability to go through a full cycle of movement. This bias also gets some much needed work of the adductors, hamstrings, and internal rotators.
Placing the DB in the same side hand of the working leg does exactly what you think it will do… the opposite of contra & FHE… bias mid-late stance mechanics!
Just because someone is “stuck” in late stance, doesn’t mean it’s bad to bias that stance from time to time. The reason being is that athletes need to propel forward! Late stance is the final piece to the propulsion puzzle, and in athletics it’s highly beneficial to be good at this action! Hip concentric ER is what we are looking for, and because the ipsi side load pulls us forward , we get that! Elevating the back foot does this to a greater degree. Caution though, if you are lacking hip extension, you could feed into compensations that you’ve built over time, and potentially cause more issues.
Taking a traditional stance, we are still sitting a more early/ mid stance bias. The shin stays relatively vertical throughout the movement, but the load being held at chest level increases the demand on the anterior trunk musculature.
We are still getting hip rotators to work, we are still building lower body strength, don’t worry! We like to use this load placement to help promote core strength, and as a tool to teach athletes how to balance in space, while on a flat surface. Elevating toes, and feet is often too complicated for the novice athlete to learn how to move.
These are just a few examples of how a simple load placement can lead to adaptations going to one side of the spectrum, or the other. At the end of the day, if you’re a 0, any and all of this will work (mostly). The details of load placement, and where your feet are key for athletes with multiple compensation patterns to dig through, stay away from an injured muscle group, or if you want athletes to feel a certain muscle group a certain way. Give it a try!
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If you’re still here you must really be bored, but to claim your reward, contact coach Nate at nate@tpstrength.com.
KB Ipsi RFE Split Squat
