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Yesterday Daniel Clough and the team at WannaBeBig.com dropped my second article on the site Unilateral Hypertrophy – Killing it One Leg at a Time: Part 2.

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And since Daniel is such a great guy, when I asked him if he’d be willing to throw down some product for a pre-Christmas giveaway he was totally on board.  So today I’m offering up two 2.2 pound tubs of Nitrean protein powder for FREE.

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And just so you know, Nitrean is a two time winner of the Best Protein Powder designation by the Men’s Health Nutrition Awards.  It is high quality protein and it tastes really damn good!

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All you have to do to score yourself some is leave a comment below letting me know you want it and I’ll pick a winner out of a hat tomorrow (Thursday) at the end of the day or when we get 50 comments…whichever comes first.

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On your mark… get set… GO!

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Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Daniel Clough from WannaBeBig.com and when he asked me to write some stuff for his site I was super pumped.  He’s a great guy all around and I really enjoyed putting together some content.

In light of all the excitement lately about single leg training I decided to put together a piece on this very topic.  Check out my progressions for killing your quads on one leg HERE.

While you’re there don’t forget to check out the articles by other smart peeps like Bret Contreras, Nick Tumminello, Alan Aragon, and Karsten Jensen.

Every so often I hear someone say something that really forces me to think seriously about why I train people the way I do.  Last week was one of those times and Mike Boyle was one of those people.

If you know anything about Mike Boyle at all you’re probably aware that he’s pretty big on single leg training.  Split squats, single leg split squats, and step ups are a huge part of his programming.  But last week when I was listening to his audio interview at RobertsonTraining Systems.com he said something that kicked my brain into gear.

He said that a lot of people can’t squat properly.  I definitely agree with that since a great number of people I’ve worked with don’t have the hip mobility to squat properly at first.  However, he also said (I’m paraphrasing here so don’t crucify me) that when a lot of people do a bilateral squat that their core gives out before their legs so their leg workout suffers as a result.  I also have to agree here to some degree.

The question running through my head though was why on earth can’t mobility be increased, form be instructed, and the core be strengthened to allow someone to perform a bilateral back squat???

Then it struck me.  I haven’t done a back squat in over 2 years.  In fact, I have some clients with back injuries involving compression that have done just as well for fat loss without any bilateral lower body movements at all.  And, their legs are just as developed (aesthetically) as those of the people doing front or back squats. 

We still work on hip mobility and strengthen the core.   We also hit their glutes, hams, and quads hard to bring about hypertrophy, but they just don’t squat.

I guess the point I’m making here is that you can build a great set of wheels without bilateral movements no matter what HyoogeArms21 is telling you on the forums.  As Mike Boyle says, “don’t get married to a movement”.  Just use what works in your specific situation.

If you’re a powerlifter, you HAVE to squat.  If you like squatting, go ahead and squat.  But if you’re training purely for aesthetics and you hate squatting or have an injury that prevents it, don’t worry about it.  All too often I see people trying to squat who shouldn’t be just because someone told them they can’t get jacked without them.

In the end there are plenty of other options for single leg training that you can use and as long as you bust your ass (Mike Boyle has guys doing single leg split squats with over 200 pounds) you’ll still get great results!

Have your  own thoughts about the importance of squatting?  Feel free to disagree.  Post them in the comments below!