Add some weight to a pistol and tell me its easy. I do pistols at the very end of my leg day. I think they work fine.
Add some weight to a pistol and tell me its easy. I do pistols at the very end of my leg day. I think they work fine.
I have to agree with increasing a begginers lift by a lot within the first few weeks.
I took a client from a 65lb bench press to 185lb bench in just over a month.
It’s a little weird how everybody sings the praises of unilateral work (and rightly so), but when the single-leg squat comes up, nobody likes them. People don’t like them because they’re hard. It’s much easier and much gentler to the ego to do heavy singles in the back squat.
[quote]rmccart1 wrote:
It’s a little weird how everybody sings the praises of unilateral work (and rightly so), but when the single-leg squat comes up, nobody likes them. People don’t like them because they’re hard. It’s much easier and much gentler to the ego to do heavy singles in the back squat.[/quote]
Yeah, it’s kinda wierd. It’s not like pistols are a bosu ball exercise. The similie of pistols being like one-arm chins is a better way to look at it, even though pistols are easier than one-arm chins.
What exercise will produce the most training effect? More than likely, the one you absolutely suck at. Not talking pain restrictions, just performance inability.
A 200 lb guy that can squat 400 is using both limbs to move 600 total system pounds. IF you halve that load to BW plus 100 external pounds and cannot perform an equal amount of work or generate the same amount of force comparing single limb to single limb, what do you suppose the harm is in taking time off of the back squat and working to balance your force output?
[quote]rmccart1 wrote:
It’s a little weird how everybody sings the praises of unilateral work (and rightly so), but when the single-leg squat comes up, nobody likes them. People don’t like them because they’re hard. It’s much easier and much gentler to the ego to do heavy singles in the back squat.[/quote]I don’t know about easier, but definately gentler on the ego if you miss in a heavy squat than a bodyweight pistol…
I love squats and would be perfectly happy doing nothing but squats, but I think that including unilateral work is a REALLY good idea for most people in some phases of their training.
[quote]FightingScott wrote:
Doing Pistol Squats is a skill. While it may have some validity in training balance and co-ordination, pistol squats in my humble and unprofessional opinion are mostly just about getting better at doing pistol squats.
If you train someone with single legged squats or games of free-for-all dodge-ball played with medicine balls while kneeling on swiss balls you’re mostly just teaching them to become better at these exercises.
And I never finished writing this response and I started at 3pm and it’s past midnight now and the girl I was working on all night got taken out of the club by her fat friends which made me pretty pissed so when some jackass came up to me and fake puked in my face I grabbed his right shoulder and pushed him into my fist, whereupon he actually felt compelled to vomit for real. Don’t fuck with me right now, son.
Pistol squats suck. You wanna get faster? Run. You wanna jump higher? Snatch. You want co-ordinated, fast lateral movement? Get out on the field and play some fucking contact sports. Single Legged Squats are a waste of my time, hurt my knees, and symbolize time wasted learning them as a skill (and nothing more).
If you tell me you’re dumber for reading this I swear to Vishnu I will reach through the fiberoptic and sattalite connections that seperate us and fuck you the fuck up.
Peace Bitches[/quote]
Now that’s funny.
[quote]undeadlift wrote:
rmccart1 wrote:
It’s a little weird how everybody sings the praises of unilateral work (and rightly so), but when the single-leg squat comes up, nobody likes them. People don’t like them because they’re hard. It’s much easier and much gentler to the ego to do heavy singles in the back squat.
Yeah, it’s kinda wierd. It’s not like pistols are a bosu ball exercise. The similie of pistols being like one-arm chins is a better way to look at it, even though pistols are easier than one-arm chins.[/quote]
It’s definitely an ego thing. People have no problem doing db bench (which is unilateral work), but they basically call single leg squats a pussy exercise. Probably cause they can’t do them.
People have also even hated on chinups. Is it because they’re not good at them? Probably. In the thread about Kroc doing 30 pullups, people were arguing about whether it was impressive because he didn’t go all the way up. Someone kept saying “strong recognizes strong”, but then went on to say that they wouldn’t consider someone strong just because they could do 30 full ROM chins. Tell me if that one makes sense. I don’t care if you weigh 120, 30 full ROM chins is strong.
I think people need to realize that just because something isn’t a bench, squat, or deadlift doesn’t mean it’s not an indicator of strength.
When I played college basketball ( that was…cough, cough…years ago) a couple of friends and I used to show-off by challenging each other to see who could do more pistols ( we didn’t have a name for them then. sure didn’t call them that.) Anyway, they were easy for us. Well, I decided to add them back into my routine 6 months ago. That was no medicine for my ego! I worked my way back to up 3x8 with each leg. This is in addition to front and jump squat work.
As others have said, if they’re too easy for you, load them. Put on a weight vest, or loaded backpack. Use bands.
From an athletic performance standpoint they make sense because as Gambetta and Boyle point out, in most sports movement is taking place on one leg at time. Think baseball pitcher. Think layup in basketball. Think javelin throw. Think coming out of the blocks in sprinting (even though the initial start movement uses both legs). Hell, think old man or woman walking down the stairs.
Why not incorporate these into a program to improve performance and to prevent injury?
I do lots of bodyweight exercises. Pistols are very useful for a couple of reasons.
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I have an artificial hip. They force your hip stabilizers to work and these are the only exercises I’ve found that actually get the hip working right. Bilateral work does not do that and I’ve seen more than a few powerlifters who can back squat a ton but can’t do a pistol.
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(I have an ACL rebuild) they replace the leg extension and curl machine with something that allows the joint to move in a way more natural for it. I get knee pain using machine but not with pistols.
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Pistols are hard to learn right. Most people do them wrong and get everything from knee pain to lower back strains. I’ve seen people run to the gym with the most recent issue of Men’s Health, try a few poorly then shrug them off.
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Coach Boyle’s observation that all sports are leg-unilateral (aside from powerlifting) is smack on the money. Since powerlifting is ancillary to my other training things like pistols are useful to me. Probably not to you.
→ Peeve. I emphasized the phrase to me above because most of the arguing I’ve seen about these omits those words then misgeneralizes the topic. All of the forums are about each of us telling what worked for us so you can read a hopefully fair accounting of it and see it if might apply to you too. I harbor no illusion that the needs of a middle-aged athlete whose had joint replacement/reconstruction (another one is looming, sigh) are the same as a 20 year-old in peak condition. Don’t read more into it than is there. 'k?
– jj