POWER — Focusing on developing strength in each leg causes you to mentally dial into the muscles and movements of JUST that leg.  Whereas typical movements like barbell squats may focus on the entire body, single leg split squats allow you to hone in on the muscles of the working leg to develop greater power.  Rather than spreading the resistance across both legs, you are forced to focus on the one leg and its ability to combat resistance, and move so quickly, improving your strength and power.

 

BALANCE CORRECTION — When performing bilateral movements in sport/life, it is easy to overcompensate for a weaker side of the body by leaning into the stronger side.  Single Leg exercises eliminate this dependence.  While it can be frustrating in the moment to reveal the weakness, it allows us the ability to correct the imbalance to ensure our whole body is more stable, leading to higher confidence in our performance when we step on the ice.

 

INJURY PREVENTION — One of the most overlooked benefits of exercise as a whole, single leg exercises double down on helping PREVENT injury.  Again, focusing on one limb at a time grants us the opportunity to not only strengthen the muscles, but build better connections in our joints.  Often also allowing us to reach deeper Ranges of Motion (ROM), we are able to train our body, muscles, tendons, and joints to withstand great forces and become more resilient.  The stronger the joints and connecting tissues, the (a) easier they can withstand big hits or sharp changes of direction, but also (b) heal and repair more quickly should injury still occur.

 

PROPRIOCEPTION — A fancy buzzword for your ability to know how your body moves through space, all the other benefits funnel into developing your proprioception.  Every time you push your body through resistance, your brain and muscle create more neural connections to perform the action.  This helps develop strong, stable, healthy, balanced legs leading to higher confidence in knowing that your legs/body are going to do what you ask it to do on the ice, without having to deeply focus or watch yourself actually do it.