Single-leg exercises offer a variety of benefits that runners shouldn’t miss out on. Discover why you should incorporate unilateral leg exercises into you gym routine and 5 minimal-equipment single-leg strength exercises that will help you become a stronger runner.

What are the benefits of strength-training for runners?

In short, the main benefits of strength-training for runners are:

• Reducing the risk of injury by making your muscles stronger, correcting imbalances and developing your stability.

• Helping develop your speed and power by improving the coordination between your brain and muscles.

• Helping optimise your running economy by improving your running form.

In this post, we’re going to focus on leg exercises, especially those that are unilateral. This means that only one leg is working at a time.

You don’t need much equipment for these exercises, if you have free weights at home you don’t even need to go to the gym!

But as a runner, why should you incorporate single leg exercises into your strength training routine?

The benefits of single-leg strength exercises for runners

When you think about it, running is a unilateral sport, your feet are not both on the ground at the same time.

Single-leg exercises help you improve your running by working on your balance or single-leg stability but also your coordination and can help correct imbalances.

Unilateral exercises also make you work your core because you’ll be engaging your abdominal muscles to stay stable when standing on one leg. And a stronger core = better running form.

Top 5 single-leg strength exercises for runners

Check out this video for the exercise tutorials.

Single-leg deadlift

My all time favourite single-leg exercise! f it seems intimidating, don’t worry, it’s the hardest one, the next 4 are much easier.

If you’re new to this exercise, I suggest doing it next to a wall of anything you can hold with your free hand, you can also start with your bodyweight only and not hold any weight.

Engage your core, roll your shoulders back. In a controlled movement, bend over and as you roll the dumbbell/your hand down your standing leg, you’re raising your back leg, which is extended.

Aim to achieve a straight line from your head to your back foot. Slowly get back to your initial position.

You can put your foot on the ground for balance then go again, or keep it off the ground for even more stability work.

Curtsy lunge

This lunge variation that doesn’t get the credit it deserves in my opinion.

You can hold a weight at chest level or start with your bodyweight only.

Feet shoulder-width apart, step back and sideways, as if you’re curtsying, this is where the name of this exercise comes from.

Bend your knees until the your front thigh is parallel with the ground, and your back knee is just about to touch the ground. Then stand back up.

This is great to fire up your quads and your glutes especially the gluteus medius, which is an important muscle for stability, but is hard to target with standard squats and lunges.

Single-leg glute bride

Moving on to the single leg glute bridge, pretty self explanatory. Instead of doing bridges with both feet on the ground, lift one leg. Now the trick here, is to still aim to lift your bum and not your extended leg. If you look, my extended leg doens’t move, doens;t do any work. the effort comes from the glutes. make sure to engage your core to avoid curving your lower back.

Step up

Another exercise I love it the step up. If you’re short like me, put a bumper plate on the floor to achieve to reduce the height difference between the floor and the bench.

if you’re a bit wobbly, hold only 1 dumbbell and stay near a wall or something you can hold onto with your free hand.

Put one foot plat on the bench then bring your back leg up, driving your knee up and forward. It really helps to squeeze your glutes and core to keep your balance. Stay here for one second, then bring your foot back on the floor.

Elevated single-leg calf raise

You can use a bumper plate, a small step or even a thick book if you’re home, and you want to be facing a wall or something you can hold.

Hold a weight on the same side as your standing leg, ensuring that only half of your foot is in contact with the plate/step. Your heel should not be supported.

Then get up on your toes, pause for one second, drop back down and let your heels lower towards the ground. If you don’t really feel your calves with the calf raise machine, try this exercise!

How to incorporate single-leg strength exercises into your routine?

I would recommend doing a few single-leg exercises once to twice a week. If you’re just getting started at the gym, pick one or two to add at the end of your gym workout, once a week.

If you’re a regular gym goer and train legs each week, you can swap some of your exercises for unilateral variations, for instance the single-leg bridge instead of the glute bridge, or this calf raise exercise instead of the calf raise machine.

Aim for 2 to 3 sets per exercise, 8-12 reps per side and per set.

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