Week 4: Single vs Double Leg Movements

This week I decided to see which was better, single or double leg movements in terms of increasing my vertical. What I found really shocked me but unfortunately, I wish I had knew some of this information ahead of time. According to this study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, single leg plyometric training is 2-3 times more effective than the double leg counterpart trained at the same volume. Funny enough, he study took place over 6 weeks where the participants trained twice a week…sound familiar?? Their training frequency and program length is THE EXACT same as mine! Of course the workouts vary but throughout the 6 weeks, there was a total of 1800 jumps performed. This is in comparison to the 1760 jumps I will have performed in 10 workouts (2 workouts a week, one week off in the 6 week program).

What I do have to keep in mind however is the participants were only doing body weight exercises for plyometrics whereas one of my exercises that accounts for 14% of the jumping exercise volume is a weighted exercise. I also have to take into account that my program has a lot more strength exercises than the participants program which I believe is more taxing but beneficial in the long run. Besides that, both programs share very similar exercises. With the findings of this study I wish I would have had more guts to dive deep into studies and have found this out sooner. When initially researching this program I shied away from complex studies such as this one due to their complexity but I have learnt that they truly aren’t as scary once you take time to understand what they are talking about. I guess that is the whole purpose of this project is learning what does and doesn’t work!

Another benefit of single leg training is having both legs trained to perform the same. What I mean by that is as you can see in the video below, when performing a pistol squat, my left leg is very obviously stronger and more coordinated than my right leg. This has shown me that even while I a took a break from writing this blog to take that video…is that I still have some muscle imbalances. BUT! I wasn’t even able to do a full pistol squat with my right leg weeks ago which means there has been some improvement.

I decided to somewhat back up the findings of the one study I found by doing a quick search on the benefits of single leg training. What I learnt from an Aussie Rules Strength Coach blog (using blogs to learn!? Who would have thought??) is that single leg training offers a lesser chance of injury while competing in sport, single leg strength carries over to double leg but not vice versa, and there is more muscle fiber recruitment which essentially means a more effective training stimulus. These facts all seem to line up with the study I previously mentioned in the blog. As for my progress? Obviously something is being done right since at the very start of the program, my stats were…

Initial Standing/Running Vertical: 24inches/28inches

Week 4 Standing/Running Vertical: 26.5inches/29inches

My standing vertical increased by roughly 10.4% and my running vertical increased by roughly 3.5%!! I noticed the testing method I have been using is slightly flawed. With the tape on my finger not attaching to the wall every single time, it means that every single jump is not accounted for. I do remember touching slightly above a 29inch tape mark (possibly to a height of 29.5inches) but due to the tape not actually attaching, I decided to keep that finding out since there was no true way of measuring if my eyeballs were correct. Other adjustments in the testing protocol are further discussed in the video below!