Recently I received this question about an article i wrote nearly a quarter of a century ago. It was a great question and deserved a great answer. I share it with you and trust you find value in this exchange. “I’ve been training for almost 16 years now, but with the demands of becoming a […]
Shortly after the ‘stretching before training and games paradigm raised up in the late 1990s, a default position was also promoted – to stretch afterwards. Ironic (or tragic) in that in my opinion for the most part, those promoting this position don’t stretch and have low competency and personal scores in flexibility. I am often […]
By Ian King Mobility training is fake stretching The new athlete said to me: “I do my mobility work and then I feel good for a while but during the workout I feel all stiff again.” I said: “Before we go any further I just to make it clear I don’t use the word ‘mobility’, […]
By Ian King Are your single leg training concepts from the 1990s still relevant? I recently received a email where the writer asked: “ Dear Ian, I’ve come across your single leg 2 part routine limping into October online. This I believe is the gold dust I have been looking for. I’ve been attempting to […]
By Ian King I was near the finish line at a high school yesterday watching over 100 thirteen to fourteen year old boys complete a cross country race. As I do everywhere I studied their shape and development. Apart from the expected changes some were experiencing consistent with entering the early teen age years, there […]
By Ian King In part one of this series I raised the two challenges I faced in the 1980s – first, that there were inadequate numbers of exercises being used in single-leg format, and second, that the few exercises being used were predominantly quad dominant. The Final Words on Single-Leg Exercise Thirty years later, […]
By Ian King Now that everyone is utilizing single-leg training, surely they have figured it out. But I suggest not. As I outlined in part two of this series, there are many ways that the majority are undermining the power of single-leg training. In the following I share seven key strategies that will help you […]
By Ian King In part one of this series I shared a historical review of single leg training. In this second installment, I will focus on what I call the overreactions to the single-leg training trend that I triggered with my published works in the late 1990s onwards. The Trend of Overreaction to Trends […]
By Ian King Everywhere you look in the training world today you see single leg exercises. You could be forgiven for thinking that it was always this way. It wasn’t. The purpose of this article is understand how we arrived at this point of popularity in single leg training, gain clarity of the intent […]
By Ian King #1 Assisted Squats I developed this exercise shortly after my first knee reconstruction in 1983, to assist me continue squatting without pain and minimizing wear. I called it ‘assisted squats’. Following that I also found it effective as a teaching drill for others, allowing them to experiment with different lines of movement […]