One legged squats

Seekerman

I was with a group a my home the other day and chatting about exercise and strength etc. Two of the three woman could not complete a single push up. There arms just gave out 3/4 the way down. One lady said but I can do these. She basically did a figure skaters sit spin position on one leg except she went lower ( butt almost touching the floor.) She could do multiple reps up and down seemingly fairly easy. The other two could do them too but with more difficulty for one or two reps. I on the other hand I could not do a single rep. I could not get up or would fall over. I can knock out 50 push ups but not one of these where the woman can't do any push up but can do these. I am top heavy muscled and realized I need some lower body strength improvement as much as these woman need upper body strength improvement.

I forget the name of this exercise. Anyone know? What is required to be able to do them? Are they worth learning. Are they for some reason easier for woman. Any try these and can do them?

PikaKnight

Pistol Squats


ETA: They are a great leg exercise. And no, it isn't easier for women. No exercise is easier because of someone's gender.

Joannesmith2818

I have never been able to do a push up properly....It sucks

PJ_73

I actually tried these 'partial single leg squats' today.

I fell over.

PikaKnight

I actually tried these 'partial single leg squats' today.

I fell over.

Did you just try to do them without assistance? I'm still doing assisted pistol squats but working my way to unassisted. Great exercises to help strengthen the leg muscles to do them (aside from assisted) are weighted - lunges, reverse lunges, split squats, walking lunges and Bulgarian squats.

kelly_e_montana

Pistol squats and they take practice! I don't know about the gender thing but my pole fitness instructors always tell me that women have an easier time with lower body strength holds than upper body strength holds when first starting out.

michael1976_ca

no way you should youtube it my gosh it looks killer

3dogsrunning

I actually tried these 'partial single leg squats' today.

I fell over.

Did you just try to do them without assistance? I'm still doing assisted pistol squats but working my way to unassisted. Great exercises to help strengthen the leg muscles to do them (aside from assisted) are weighted - lunges, reverse lunges, split squats, walking lunges and Bulgarian squats.

Pistol squats are the devil.

I do assisted as well. You can hold a pole, or put a band around a pole. At crossfit they also stack some weights to almost sit on so when you sit, you push right off of the weights. It helps a little with balance.

Seekerman

The one woman could do them with zero assistance. The other two need a single finger to just hold them stable but got up all on there own. I on the other hand needed a full two hands and a tug for assistance or forget it. I fact I would collapse to the floor half way between parallel and the floor on my own without. My much bigger upper body weighs probably 50 pounds more then the woman though. Excuses right lol.

neandermagnon

on ice, it's called "shoot the duck", off ice they're pistol squats

I can't do these without raising my heel, due to having relatively short shins compared to my femur length, i.e. my centre of gravity goes too far back to maintain balance, and i can't even do them while holding onto a chair for balance because it's physically impossible to get my centre of gravity to stay over my foot all the way down (it needs to be, in order to balance)

raise my heel 2 inches and I can do them easily, very easily.

with regular squats, I have the same issue if my feet are too close together... with a wider stance I can squat *kitten* to grass

they are not easier for women, they are easier for people with relatively long shin bones though, due to the knee being able to move further forward relative to the hips, thus keeping your centre of gravity over your feet where it should be. with shorter shins/longer femurs, your hips move further back while your knees can't go so far forward. a wider stance in regular squats limits how far back the hips can go thus correcting the issue, but in pistol squats the foot has to be under the torso, so the only way to correct it is to raise the heel, which is equivalent to lengthening the shin bone.

ankle inflexibility can result in the same issue, and some will blame this problem entirely on that, however, how far the knee can move forward is relative to both the degree to which the ankle is flexed and the relative length of the shin bone. So in any individual it could be either that's causing the issue, or a combination of both.

PikaKnight

I actually tried these 'partial single leg squats' today.

I fell over.

Did you just try to do them without assistance? I'm still doing assisted pistol squats but working my way to unassisted. Great exercises to help strengthen the leg muscles to do them (aside from assisted) are weighted - lunges, reverse lunges, split squats, walking lunges and Bulgarian squats.

Pistol squats are the devil.

I do assisted as well. You can hold a pole, or put a band around a pole. At crossfit they also stack some weights to almost sit on so when you sit, you push right off of the weights. It helps a little with balance.

That's cool! I have to use the dresser or the windowsill...lolz.

PJ_73

I actually tried these 'partial single leg squats' today.

I fell over.

Did you just try to do them without assistance? I'm still doing assisted pistol squats but working my way to unassisted. Great exercises to help strengthen the leg muscles to do them (aside from assisted) are weighted - lunges, reverse lunges, split squats, walking lunges and Bulgarian squats.

Yup, guessed I'd gone wrong somewhere as I picked myself up off the floor. Balance isn't my forte, so I shall be looking for assistance next time round!

PikaKnight

on ice, it's called "shoot the duck", off ice they're pistol squats

I can't do these without raising my heel, due to having relatively short shins compared to my femur length, i.e. my centre of gravity goes too far back to maintain balance, and i can't even do them while holding onto a chair for balance because it's physically impossible to get my centre of gravity to stay over my foot all the way down (it needs to be, in order to balance)

raise my heel 2 inches and I can do them easily, very easily.

with regular squats, I have the same issue if my feet are too close together... with a wider stance I can squat *kitten* to grass

they are not easier for women, they are easier for people with relatively long shin bones though, due to the knee being able to move further forward relative to the hips, thus keeping your centre of gravity over your feet where it should be. with shorter shins/longer femurs, your hips move further back while your knees can't go so far forward. a wider stance in regular squats limits how far back the hips can go thus correcting the issue, but in pistol squats the foot has to be under the torso, so the only way to correct it is to raise the heel, which is equivalent to lengthening the shin bone.

ankle inflexibility can result in the same issue, and some will blame this problem entirely on that, however, how far the knee can move forward is relative to both the degree to which the ankle is flexed and the relative length of the shin bone. So in any individual it could be either that's causing the issue, or a combination of both.

That's a great point about the flexibility that I hadn't even thought of. Aside from increasing my strength gains, I've found doing yoga once in awhile and regular stretching has helped with getting further ATG on my goblet squats and lower in my lunges. I think this could also have been a definite factor in helping get lower into the pistol squat.

Naomi0504

These sound intriguing, I want to try them now

neandermagnon

The one woman could do them with zero assistance. The other two need a single finger to just hold them stable but got up all on there own. I on the other hand needed a full two hands and a tug for assistance or forget it. I fact I would collapse to the floor half way between parallel and the floor on my own without. My much bigger upper body weighs probably 50 pounds more then the woman though. Excuses right lol.

your centre of gravity needs to stay over the foot to be able to balance, so having a larger torso, if your torso is not over your foot, will make it harder to balance. if you can keep your centre of gravity directly over your foot, torso size makes no difference.

I have this issue. I can't do heel on the floor pistol squats even holding a chair for balance, and I have very good balance for everything else. Before I understood the anthropometrics of this, I tried to physically force my centre of gravity to where I knew it should be, the result was pain in the ankle joint (where the tibia meets the foot bones) and pain in the knee.

First time I tried with my heel raised (about 2 inches), I could do them just fine, I could also feel the difference in terms of centre of gravity.... without my heel raised my centre of gravity goes down in a C shape, with my heel raised, it goes straight up and down, staying over my foot.

Anthropometrics do make a difference for quite a lot of exercises. This is one of them.

BinaryPulsar

Another possible modification that you can do to learn is to do a one legged squat into a chair and then as you improve choose a lower and lower and lower surface to sit onto, then do them holding onto something (with nothing to sit onto), then move onto the full, regular pistol squats, And as others said, there are other one-legged variations you can do as another option.

It is similiar to how I learned to do push-ups. I did them holding onto a slightly elevated surface, until eventually (did not take long), I could do them on the flat ground, and then with my legs elevated (that supposedly makes them harder, but by that point they seemed just as easy as the flat surface ones).

running_free_1984

Working on a pistol squat... I'm fine with pushups. Even the scorpion push up but i find the pistol squat harder. But I'm not going to beat myself up as the Spartan rave did that for me today...

running_free_1984

Working on a pistol squat... I'm fine with pushups. Even the scorpion push up but i find the pistol squat harder. But I'm not going to beat myself up as the Spartan rave did that for me today...

did mean Spartan race. Although a rave would be cool...

neandermagnon

on ice, it's called "shoot the duck", off ice they're pistol squats

I can't do these without raising my heel, due to having relatively short shins compared to my femur length, i.e. my centre of gravity goes too far back to maintain balance, and i can't even do them while holding onto a chair for balance because it's physically impossible to get my centre of gravity to stay over my foot all the way down (it needs to be, in order to balance)

raise my heel 2 inches and I can do them easily, very easily.

with regular squats, I have the same issue if my feet are too close together... with a wider stance I can squat *kitten* to grass

they are not easier for women, they are easier for people with relatively long shin bones though, due to the knee being able to move further forward relative to the hips, thus keeping your centre of gravity over your feet where it should be. with shorter shins/longer femurs, your hips move further back while your knees can't go so far forward. a wider stance in regular squats limits how far back the hips can go thus correcting the issue, but in pistol squats the foot has to be under the torso, so the only way to correct it is to raise the heel, which is equivalent to lengthening the shin bone.

ankle inflexibility can result in the same issue, and some will blame this problem entirely on that, however, how far the knee can move forward is relative to both the degree to which the ankle is flexed and the relative length of the shin bone. So in any individual it could be either that's causing the issue, or a combination of both.

That's a great point about the flexibility that I hadn't even thought of. Aside from increasing my strength gains, I've found doing yoga once in awhile and regular stretching has helped with getting further ATG on my goblet squats and lower in my lunges. I think this could also have been a definite factor in helping get lower into the pistol squat.

I've always been able to squat *kitten* to grass with 2 feet on the floor, i've also always naturally taken a wider stance. A lot of people who can't squat *kitten* to grass, flexibility is the main issue, but anthropometrics can make it more difficult for some people. having relatively short shins/long femurs is a PITA for squatting, but not something that it's impossible to overcome. However it's about having the right advice. I have tried to increase my ankle flexibility to overcome this issue but I got to the point where it feels like my tibia is grinding against my foot bones, this hurts a lot and really I don't think it's good for my ankles at all, I don't want to get arthritis. So for barbell squats, I make sure my stance is wide enough that this isn't an issue and pistol squats I raise my heels.

I think there is a need for more advice on how to adjust form for certain lifts/exercises to suit your own anthropometrics.

tomcornhole

I think there is a need for more advice on how to adjust form for certain lifts/exercises to suit your own anthropometrics.

I agree.

3laine75

The one woman could do them with zero assistance. The other two need a single finger to just hold them stable but got up all on there own. I on the other hand needed a full two hands and a tug for assistance or forget it. I fact I would collapse to the floor half way between parallel and the floor on my own without. My much bigger upper body weighs probably 50 pounds more then the woman though. Excuses right lol.

Haha someone missed leg day

Seekerman

I tried to concentrated on keeping my mass over my foot for better center of gravity. It did help a lot. I still failed to go atg but I could go lower.

Ah yes, I admit missed too many legs days lol
The woman in this group have stronger legs then I do so it seems.

Seekerman

Today even my friends 19 year old daughter could do multiple in a row them. Mine you she is a dancer. I still can't do one. Maybe easier for flexible bodies and certain body mechanics as stated here by others. I find it hard to believe her legs are stronger. Maybe on a pound for pound level they are.
How many women can do these with only a balance aid or not? I bet more women and men can do them.

kirkor

Pistols are awesome!

You can do them holding a kettlebell and that makes the center-of-gravity issue less prominent.

neandermagnon

I bet the Cro-Magnons could do them more easily than the neanderthals due to the latter having relatively short shins/long femurs. I'd also bet that the neanderthals were way better at deadilfting.

I still don't think it's a gender thing... I'm female BTW. but I do seem to have neanderthal body proportions - in this case short shin/relatively long femur (there are quite a few neanderthal genes in the modern gene pool) - this is far more likely to be an ethnic origin thing than a gender thing (i.e. more frequency of relatively short shins in populations that have more neanderthal DNA). I don't think women have more favourable body proportions for pistol squats.. increased flexibility may be an issue.


Have you measured your limb proportions? Also, have you tried it with your heel raised a couple of inches? If it's a limb proportion issue then that should fix it.... I went from being unable to do them at all to being able to do them very very easily just by raising my heel. I can feel the difference in my centre of gravity as in instead of it going down in a C shape it just goes straight up and down. If you're generally fit, strong, flexible and have good balance but are just stuck on these and narrow stance squats (but can go ATG in a wide stance or heels raised) then I'm guessing it's a biomechanics thing. This article explains about how femur length affects the biomechanics of squats: http://www.schwarzenegger.com/fitness/post/picking-the-squat-thats-rght-for-you - the only fix for pistol squats is raising the heel (you can't have a wide stance with just one leg)

patrickfish7

Pistols are awesome!

You can do them holding a kettle-bell and that makes the center-of-gravity issue less prominent.

This ^

Pistols take time to master. I use the kettle-bell gravity-offset trick and it works well. I've only been doing them a few weeks but boy, it gives your legs a going over....

Most likely reason most struggle with them is because we tend to focus on the visible, not the hidden so that's mainly guns, shoulders and chest. Along with pullups, I rank pistols as one of the best exercises to do.

darrensurrey

Cheers for that, neandermagnon. Interesting stuff!

neandermagnon

Pistols are awesome!

You can do them holding a kettle-bell and that makes the center-of-gravity issue less prominent.

This ^

Pistols take time to master. I use the kettle-bell gravity-offset trick and it works well. I've only been doing them a few weeks but boy, it gives your legs a going over....

Most likely reason most struggle with them is because we tend to focus on the visible, not the hidden so that's mainly guns, shoulders and chest. Along with pullups, I rank pistols as one of the best exercises to do.

I might try that centre of gravity offset thing.

Vailara

This is interesting. A while back, I spent weeks trying to do these, and they felt horribly unnatural and completely impossible. It wasn't a flexibility problem, I'm sure, as I'm pretty flexible. I gave up because they were too painful and I worried that I was damaging my knees, and thought that I just wasn't strong enough.

After reading the posts about the centre of gravity and so on (thanks, Neandermagnon!), I tried tucking my foot underneath instead of sticking it out in front. That way, I could easily squat right down and up again on one leg (although I was a bit wobbly, balance-wise). So clearly, strength isn't the issue.

Obviously, "my" exercise is much easier than a pistol squat, but presumably it would still build strength and balance? Does it "count" or is it a pointless thing to do?

By the way, OP, it took me about a year to build up to being able to do a "proper" push-up, so I'm very impressed by your ability in that department!

neandermagnon

This is interesting. A while back, I spent weeks trying to do these, and they felt horribly unnatural and completely impossible. It wasn't a flexibility problem, I'm sure, as I'm pretty flexible. I gave up because they were too painful and I worried that I was damaging my knees, and thought that I just wasn't strong enough.

After reading the posts about the centre of gravity and so on (thanks, Neandermagnon!), I tried tucking my foot underneath instead of sticking it out in front. That way, I could easily squat right down and up again on one leg (although I was a bit wobbly, balance-wise). So clearly, strength isn't the issue.

Obviously, "my" exercise is much easier than a pistol squat, but presumably it would still build strength and balance? Does it "count" or is it a pointless thing to do?

By the way, OP, it took me about a year to build up to being able to do a "proper" push-up, so I'm very impressed by your ability in that department!

I think it still is a pistol squat though.... i.e. one legged squat with your other leg out in front of you. Your foot needs to be below your centre of gravity to be balanced, no matter what. No-one can defy the laws of physics. If an object#s centre of gravity isn't over the base then it falls over.

Seekerman

Crap, I just tried with my heal raised by two inches. I still cave just past parallel. Then I tried with the free leg behind me. It is easier (probably due to centre of gravity thing) and I can go lower then if my free leg is out in front but still not a lot past parallel. I can't press myself back up past a certain depth. My leg press (with two legs) is not terrible though. Damm it lol. Upper body strength comes easier. Even when I had never done a pull up in years (only free weights) my body easily adapted quickly.