Recently I wrote a detailed article about a unique exercise called the “hip airplane” which is a variation of the single leg deadlift that I have been using successfully with people suffering with foot, knee, and hip injuries. Within this one exercise I added some slight variations to increase the challenge and difficulty to further strengthen the weak and lazy gluteal muscles. I received many emails regarding various ways I might progress this exercise once it is mastered for there are a ton of single leg variations you could use. In this article, I will give you a quick look at some of my favourite progressions to try that will challenge your body with multiple skills and strength. I also include some progressions to include for those who play sports. One thing is for certain it is an exercise that applies to people of all ages and something we all should be trying our best to improve.

Why Is the Single Leg Deadlift So Good Anyway?

If you have ever read any of my previous articles about knee pain or hip pain you will know exactly why this exercise is so good. While I love all the deadlift exercises as they are a great way to teach good hip mechanics and develop superior integrated strength, the single leg deadlift takes the movement difficulty up a notch or two as the stability and strength with the hip, knee, ankle, and feet are challenged to their full potential.

This exercise demands perfect position for movement, as any deviation from optimal alignment will often see a person fall over or use a compensatory movement that creates pain at a joint like the knee or hip. For this reason it makes up a big part of any rehabilitation program for lower limb injuries as it exposes any weakness or dysfunction very quickly. In fact I use the single leg squat as part of my assessment process with a new client on the first day for this very reason which you can read about in the article – how to use the single leg squat as an assessment tool.

However it is not only those who suffer with injury who benefit from mastering this exercise as it has been shown to produce the biggest strength gains and benefits to those who play sports. This is known as the bilateral limb deficit and is defined below.

“When the sum of torque (force) generated by each limb (individually) in the unilateral condition is greater than that generated by both limbs simultaneously (bilateral condition), it is termed the bilateral limb deficit”.  To clarify, this means that the sum of weight lifted by both limbs individually is greater than that of the same weighted exercise done by both limbs simultaneously.

In simple language this means that a person is able to squat more than half of what they can on two legs. We are actually stronger with one foot on the ground than with two if you divide the total weight lifted by two for the bilateral exercise.

Some of the world's leading sport coaches like Mike Boyle have also found this to be true and completely changed their training styles to accommodate this. Even the front cover of his best-selling book features a single leg exercise as shown below.

"Every athlete we train can do the rear-foot-elevated split squat with significantly more than half what they can do in a back squat. In fact when we tested both front squats and rear-foot-elevated split squats, many of our athletes could split squat and front squat with the same weight! I know it seems impossible, but it’s not." - Mike Boyle

You can read more about this in the articles in the links provided below.

• Why unilateral exercises provide massive strength gains
• Why single leg exercises are so good

But it is not just those who play sport who need this. Even older adults will benefit immensely from trying to use the various progressions we are about to discuss!

There is a clear relation to poor lower body strength and falls. A combination of weak bones with poor movement is a recipe for disaster. Strengthening of the bones can not only reduce the probability of a fall but also the severity. The message here is that strength training is an absolute necessity and not a luxury, and it is never too late.

There have been a countless number of studies proving the capability of people as old as 100 years to build muscle, yet this is still not common knowledge to very many older adults who still believe lifting weights is dangerous. 

To ensure success with your program the body must continually be challenged with more difficult tasks or exercises in order for it to continue to adapt and grow. The body will adapt only to the level of challenge that you give it and will not improve any more until it is given a greater challenge. This is where the true value of these single leg deadlift progressions come into play for the older adult.

It is not always about lifting heavier weights, sometimes completing more repetitions, performing the exercise for a longer period of time, or completing the exercise faster or slower can be all you need to enforce change. The key is to use a lot of various methods to continually overload the body’s systems so that you continue to make improvements.

This is where the value of the single leg progressions can tick all these boxes for the older adult and ensure they prevent the danger of a fall and continue to live their life free of fear and limitations. 

You can read more about this in the articles below. 

• How to prevent falls with older adults using reflex stability exercises
• Leg strengthening exercises for seniors

Before You Get Started Make Sure You Know How to Do a Romanian Deadlift

It goes without saying that before you attempt any of the complex and challenging single leg deadlift progressions I am about to discuss that you know how to execute a basic Romanian deadlift with two legs first.

The knee will be flexed about 20 degrees at the bottom of the movement and the tibia must remain vertical during the lift. The objective of this movement is to sit back as far as possible with the hips and maintain a neutral lumbar curve and perfect stability with your body. The most important part here is to maintain the natural curve of the lumbar spine by keeping a neutral spine and pelvis.

Watch the video below.

Instructions:

1. Position the kettlebell on the floor between your legs so that you cannot see your shins in a mirror from the side.
2. Standing with feet a comfortable width apart. Reach down keeping the natural arch in your low back, and neck tucked and grab the kettlebell maintaining good posture.
3. Inhale and engage your core before you begin to stand to the top position, exhaling when at the top and gently rolling your shoulder down and scapula apart.
4. At the top repeat the inhaling process before lowering to the ground.

I would also suggest being able to balance on one leg as another pre-requisite you will need before getting into these advanced exercises. One of the best exercises I use to achieve this with many beginners is the Toe Touch Drill.

This is a simplified version of the single leg deadlift or squat and does not demand as much range of motion or strength. What it does demand is a high degree of stability and coordination which sets a great foundation for you to build on later with the various strength exercises. Using this in combination with the two leg Romanian deadlift provides a great training base for you to easily progress to the challenging exercises.

Watch the videos below of how to do this.

Instructions

1. Standing upright with good posture on one leg. Imagine you are on the centre of a clock face. (I use a functional testing grid which I will discuss shortly)
2. Drawing your belly button inwards, bend your knee ensuring that your knee tracks over your second toe whilst reaching forward with the other foot to touch 12 on the imaginary clock.
3. Repeat the movement touching each number on the clock from 1 through to 7 and back again maintaining a good posture and leg alignment.
4. Perform on the other side.

Now that you have your deadlift and single leg stability mastered it is time to progress to the more challenging variations.

Hip Airplane with Tubing Resistance

I would like to start with this variation first for it emphasises stability and alignment of the foot, knee, and ankle over loading with weight. It is arguably the hardest of the variations to master even though it is the only one that uses your body-weight as resistance.

The major differences with this exercise versus the standard single leg RDL is the added rotational movement of the hip in the air and the proprioception demands needed to maintain balance.

Watch the video below to see how it works.

Due to the rotation of the hip in the air the body would normally begin to rotate inwards at the foot and the hip to follow. Unfortunately, the single leg stance prevents this from happening as you will fall over instantly. Instead, the body senses the loss of stability and begins to counter the rotation with an opposing rotational force to maintain the single leg stance. This torsion effect is what engages the glutes, the muscles of the foot and ankle, and most importantly the VMO muscle of the knee. The VMO plays a pivotal role in providing knee stability and is often very weak with those suffering with knee pain.

The proprioception part comes into it when you take your eyes off the horizon. With the traditional single leg exercises you can keep your eyes fixed on a point ahead which enables you to maintain good balance and control. This version takes that ability away from you and forces your ankle and feet to work twice as hard which is fantastic for improving knee stability.

By using rubber tubing to pull the tibia into external rotation forces the body to react and pull the tibia inwards, which will increase the gluteal and VMO activation level. This is known as reactive neuromuscular training.

If you are struggling to keep your balance you can regress back to the version shown below. This is seen at the 5:00 mark of the video.

It is critical that you must become good at maintaining balance on one leg and keeping good alignment of the hip, knee, and ankle before you attempt to the more challenging progressions we are about to discuss.

Let's assume you are able to do this so we can look at these more difficult progressions.

Single Leg Deadlift with Contralateral Dumbbell

The logical thing to do is hold two dumbbells and perform a single leg deadlift. While this is a great progression I prefer to use only one dumbbell and hold it on the side that has the leg in the air. This is known as a contralateral exercise as the leg on the right will be working in combination with the arm on the left, which is exactly what we do when we walk or run.

Watch the video below from the 1:00 mark to see this in action.

Performing the exercise in this way creates more instability as the body is uneven and asymmetrically balanced, which in turn forces the body to react and attempt to maintain a neutral position in order to move. It is amazing how much harder this is to do than holding two dumbbells that weigh more but allow you to remain more balanced.

The constant reacting to the asymmetrical loading forces much more work into the gluteus medius and also the posterior sling which I will discuss in more detail with the last exercise progression. This is a great way to progress from the hip airplane, but now it is time to add an upper body movement to the mix.

Single Leg Deadlift with bent-over row

With this exercise progression we now introduce an upper body movement to further complicate things and enhance overall strength. Whenever you add additional movements it forces the neuromuscular system to work so much harder to coordinate everything at the precise moment to maintain optimal efficiency. Always remember it is the brain that controls everything and these exercises train the brain most effectively.

Watch the video from the 1:33 mark to see this in action.

The other beauty of doing the exercise this way is it takes a long time to complete. Placing muscles under tension for long periods of time, more commonly known as “time under tension” or TUT, is a key part of muscle hypertrophy. Ask any body-builder about applying time under tension to exercises and they will tell you it is vital if you want to add serious muscle size. This particular exercise forces the leg muscles to stay under tension for long periods while you complete the upper body action.

Lastly, the other obvious benefit to this progression is you are able to increase muscular strength to the upper body at the same time as the legs. Not only does this increase your strength but it also significantly ramps up your metabolism and assists you in getting in great shape fast.

Single Leg Deadlift with bent-over row and dumbbell press

This version follows on from the last one and adds yet another upper body movement, this time it is the single arm overhead press. Everything that we just discussed in terms of neuromuscular strength and time under tension is taken one more step again for the legs, and this time we get to add some strength to the shoulders.

Watch the video from the 2:00 mark to see this in action.

This takes some time to get familiar with and also to find the right weight of dumbbell that you can easily press overhead. You will find the weight you can easily row is not that easy to push overhead without losing your balance.

Single Leg Deadlift with a Barbell

This is the first time that things actually start to become simple and you move towards lifting serious loads. Holding heavier dumbbells is again the more logical choice, but sometimes it is awkwardness of the barbell that delivers a bigger punch. Also for those who are really strong it allows me to keep adding plates to the bar without compromising the grip or having to struggle with the balance like the previous exercises.

This version is all about lifting as heavy as you can and forcing serious strength gains into the legs. If you spent the time to master the previous versions it would have developed some incredible skill and balance for you to execute this easily and allow you to load the bar with serious weight.

Watch the video from the 3:10 mark to see this in action.

Single Leg Deadlift with single cable row

This last exercise is my favourite of all the integrated single leg deadlifts. While it looks very similar to the dumbbell version earlier the cable adds a different perspective and creates a greater demand on providing propulsion via activation of the posterior sling. This is important for it relates more to the action of walking and running than the dumbbells.

The posterior sling is seen most commonly in the propulsion phase of walking. This is where the glute max of one hip works with the latissimus dorsi of the opposing side to create tension in the lower back region called the thoracolumbar fascia. The action of these muscles along with the fascial system is to prevent rotation of the pelvis when we walk and enable you to store energy to create more efficient movement. 

This is a commonly very weak with many people and one where we spend a lot of time trying to enhance the timing and co-ordination of the movements. Most people are so weak within their glutes that this sling is a real problem and is seen regularly in people with lateral pelvic tilt.

Many back injuries and hip injuries can be easily avoided with more work spent on this sling. The timing is crucial for the development of this and this is why this is superior to any form of isolated glute work or abdominal work for that matter. You can read more about the slings and how this relates to the hip in the two articles below.

• Core strength using the myofascial slings
• How to correct lateral pelvic tilt

You can see a different video I filmed a while back that features four different ways to train this sling by clicking here.

Other Progressions I Use With People Who Play Sports

So far all the progressions we have looked at are focused primarily on stability and strength. All the exercises are performed at slow tempos to allow maximal control of the body to maintain perfect alignment. While this is great it does not adequately prepare the person who play sports to do this at high speed. This is where you may need to use single leg movements that have an agility focus, as opposed to a strength focus. If you do not play sports these may not be relevant to you, although you could still benefit from doing them.

One of the most common injuries in sports is an ACL tear to the knee. And with females, the chances of this injury occurring are a staggering 5-8 times higher than males! See the article - Why ACL injuries in females is so much higher than males for a detailed explanation as to why this happens.

Approximately 70% of all ACL injuries are classified as non-contact situations where the person landed from a jump or tried to chase or evade a player only to fall to the ground in agony. In both cases the injury occurs with the person in a single leg stance. Most ACL tears or full ruptures occur when a person plants their foot on the ground and attempts to rotate their body in relation to that planted foot, placing a huge amount of weight on it.

While there is a stack of exercises I may need to use to rehabilitate an ACL tear there are two exercises I place a massive focus on towards the end of the program. These are single leg hopping drills that share many of the traits that the single leg deadlift has. They are not a true single leg deadlift as such, for they look more like single leg squats, but the hip action used with landing is very the same. The foot stability and hip control to maintain alignment at high speed is also the same.

Watch the two videos below to an example of this.

To see more examples of how I might progress various lateral cutting drills and landing exercises check out the article - 5 critical things you need before returning to sports after ACL surgery

Do You Need More Help?

If you currently suffer with hip, knee, or back problems you will find our online programs shown below a great resource that take you through all of the assessments and corrective exercises to get you back to full strength and out of pain. The single leg deadlift features prominently in ALL of these programs.

Summary

There is no doubting the single leg deadlift is an amazing exercise. It is no surprise I listed it at number one of my top 20 exercises of all time. These progressions show you how you can manipulate various skills and muscles to get even more out of it. The value of using these integrated progressions is that it not only challenges multiple muscles to make you stronger, it also improves your neuromuscular system to make you move more efficiently.

Efficient movement is the ultimate goal of any program for this is where you can do almost any physical activity with little risk of injury or pain. Exercise becomes fun and you can work more on fitness without fear of things going wrong. Even if you are in your mid 70's these exercises apply to you. The sooner you start the better.

For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 300 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily. You can also subscribe to our FREE fortnightly newsletter by clicking here.

If you live in Melbourne and need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help and we can set you up with your individualised program by clicking the banner below.