Single Leg

What is it?

- Any lower body exercise executed on one foot. So yes, the Crane Kick applies.

Why should I care?

- Moving on one leg is beneficial for the same reasons as split stance exercises, and generally requires a lot more stability.   Stable ankles, hips, and knees tend to be less prone to boo-boos making me a big fan of single leg variations for people prone to knee valgus.

Click for more on Knee Valgus from Bret Contreras

How?

- Single leg exercises are about precision.  Start with the single leg RDL and focus on keeping your chest and hips square to the floor while loading your hamstrings.  How do you load your hamstrings? Well, the lightbulb went off in my head when I watched this clip from Dan John.  Tune to 3:40 for the  goodies.

Cues

- Establish a tripod foot and get rooted (for some that means "screwing" their foot into the floor and for others it means trying to grab the floor with their foot)
- Push your hips back to load your hamstrings
- As the hip pushes back the trailing leg should rise in harmony with the head as it lowers.
- Pull your hips back under you to return to a standing position.

This is a difficult exercise to do well.  Start with this awesome drill from Tony Gentilcore...

Master that and then trade the foam roller for a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, or a landmine like below...