Single Leg Deadlift Touchdown

The Single Leg Deadlift Touchdown is an effective lower body exercise that strengthens and develops the muscles of the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, and core. Starting from a standing position, you will hinge forward by lifting one leg straight out behind you and allowing the opposite knee to bend as you lower the torso downward and rest the fingers of one hand on the ground. Your arm remains straight as your torso drops down until it is parallel with the ground before you will drive the working

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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and

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favorite lower body resistance training exercises, the single leg deadlift

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touchdown. Now, the single leg deadlift touchdown is a great exercise for increasing glute

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max and glute medius strength, as well as intermuscular coordination. I'm going to

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have my friend Leanne come over and help me demonstrate this exercise. Now, the only

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difference in form between a deadlift and a single leg deadlift touchdown is

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the fact that you're on a single leg. I'm going to start Leanne, lining up her

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kinetic chain check points, feet parallel, her feet, knees, and hips are all in a

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straight line. I'm going to have her draw-in, squeeze her glutes, make sure she's not in and anterior

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pelvic tilt and squeeze her shoulder blades down and back, into a neutral position. To

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get her started on this exercise all I'm going to have her do is lift her foot an inch

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off the floor. She doesn't need to put her foot forward or foot back which is

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going to change the alignment of her kinetic chain, all we need to do is lift

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that foot slightly off the floor. Now, I'm going to have Leanne go ahead and reach down with

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the opposite hand of the leg that we're using. So the leg that's on the ground, the

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left leg, is the leg that's working, so we're going to go ahead and reach with the

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right hand. What that does, that opposite arm-leg reach, is force a

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little bit of an internal rotation of the pelvis so that we lower her

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gluteus medius, an external rotator of the hip, we inhibit her piriformis, and

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increase activity of this muscculature as she comes back. Now, a couple little form

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cues, as you'll see Leanne has a tendency to want to look at the mirror, we need to remind

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Leanne to keep her chin down. So go ahead and look at her foot as she goes down, and look up

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as she comes up. That'll keep her spine in nice, straight alignment. We're going to make

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sure she draws-in and she goes down, because we have a tendency to let that pooch out,

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and then she's coming back up I'm going to have her thrust her hips forward

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and squeeze her glutes. So that cue to thrust the hips forward to come back up will

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really increase gluteus maximus activity. Now, another form discrepancy you might

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see is the locked knee. I want to make sure that I keep that knee soft to

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increase the activity of our musculature that reinforces triple extension

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mechanics, so our calves or quads, that will increase glute max and glute medius

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activity as well. So go ahead and keep that soft, reach down,

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touch down. Keeping a locked knee is going to increase strength on her

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MCL, LCL and PCL, those ligaments in our knee, as well as increase activity

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of our deep longitudinal subsystem, being our biceps femoris, sacrotuberous ligament,

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and erector spinae, and those are all of the overactive synergists we've

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been trying to get calming down in her corrective exercise work. So once again I'm going to

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to keep this knee soft. Thrust forward. That will make sure that the glute max

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and glute med stay the primary movers and stabilizers of this exercise. Now, one

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other thing I've seen that I want to go ahead and voice an

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opinion on, is I have seen a lot of straight leg, or at least the opposite

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leg is straight, single leg touchdowns.

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Now, what this does is this is going to

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increase hamstring activity on this side. There have been some research studies

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that show if activity increases on one side it will increase on the other. We

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just talked about how we don't want to start increasing biceps femoris activity

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because it'll become synergistically dominant for our glute max. Do that position

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one more time. It also increases the tendency of her rolling this way, as you saw she fell. That

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roll outward, that hip hike, is going to increase piriformis and TFL activity,

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once again, overactive synergists I don't want to get involved. Last but

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not least, this type of deadlift touchdown allows her to compensate and

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doesn't require optimal extensibility of her SI joint. So just by doing our single leg

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touchdown with feet next to each other, and a bent knee, good form, we can pretty

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much ensure that glute max and glute medius stay our prime movers, which are muscles

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that we need to get more active, and of course, have a huge benefit to any sort

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of performance whether it's weightloss performance, hypertrophy training

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or sports performance by increasing glute max and glute med strength. Now, if I was

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going to progress this exercise for strength, all I have to do is add a dumb-

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bell to this exercise. I could have her hold a dumbbell

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in this hand, and just keep increasing the load over time, keeping it at a rep range

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for strength. If I wanted to increase her stability, it's very easy to start

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adding proprioceptively enriched environments to the foot that's on the ground. We

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could start with a mat here. We could then go to two mats, an Airex pad, a half

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foam roll, or a disc. Now, if you would like to add this in, and somebody

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isn't quite ready for a full single leg touchdown, maybe because of

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extensibility or stability reasons, I could have Leanne just do a single leg

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touchdown, but only reach down to her knee. Make sure she's sitting back and then thrusting forward

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on the way up. Once she can do 10 without too much touching down, or 15, whatever

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the rep range goal is, I could have a reach down to her shin. As I

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increase her extensibility, do work for her postural dysfunction, she increases

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strength and stability, I could then have her reach all the way down over time. So

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there you go, that's our single leg deadlift

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Single Leg Deadlift Touchdown

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Single Leg Deadlift Touchdown

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