Split Your Stance to Bulletproof Your Legs

Skiing, snowboarding, running, hiking, and all you other downhill nuts.

Depending on your perspective we are either knee deep (pun intended) into the ski/snowboard season or preparing for the hot dusty trails of summer. Perhaps you need to keep your knees, hips, ankles, and low back from sending up the white flag or perhaps you have a specific performance metric improvement in mind, you should split your stance on low body exercises. This modification to your leg day will pay dividends in improved strength and performance. The lunge or split squat (yes there is a difference if you are a training nerd) is a training movement/position I have always recommended to my downhill and trail athletes as a way to maintain their muscular endurance, strength and balance.

Using a split stance is a particularly effective tool at developing muscular endurance and strength as it requires you to isolate your lead leg, specifically the quad muscles, vastus lateralis, medius and intermedius. Strengthening these muscles also helps protect integrity of the knee ligaments, tendons and meniscus. More importantly, strengthening these muscles encourages the patella (knee cap) to stay in its correct kinematic pathway, protecting the underlying cartilage.

The glute group (maximus, medius and minimus) of the lead leg benefits as well, as it strengthens these muscles at end range flexion. End range flexion is important for jumping, landing, and those endless climbs on the trail for both runners and mountain bikers.

Depending on the specific split stance exercise and how you position your weight, the rectus femoris muscle of the trailing leg benefits as well. This muscle crosses both the hip and the knee joint and is underrated as a stabilizer of both joints. A split stance position can force this muscle to work eccentrically as you descend and concentrically as you ascend, conditioning this muscle to work more efficiently throughout your stride mechanics when running or hiking.

Split stance exercises take many forms, each has it specific benefits. Below are some examples to build on.

Knees Over Toes Lunge

This lunge style has gained some popularity lately and was considered, harmful to the knee when I first got into personal training. That said, I personal think this is a great exercise but should be approached with caution by anyone with a history of knee injuries.

Step Back Lunge

This lunge will build strength in quads very quickly…be prepared for the burn.

Reverse Lunge with Rotations

Challenge your core stability with this modification to the reverse lunge.

Split Squat

Looks like a step back lung! I agree, just isolates the front leg more.