By: The Obstacle Doc
Here is a helpful tip from our partners in health, physical therapists – Dr. Chris Kosobucki and Dr. Daniela Ortiz-Kosobucki. We love that they share their expert knowledge and best advice for maintaining healthy, strong bodies and exercises to help common orthopedic injuries with our team and our clients!
One of the best clinical tests that physical therapists can do for a myriad of leg-related problems is to look at one’s single-leg squat capability. This test looks at how well each individual leg can both raise and lower one’s own body weight repeatedly.
Balance, check; coordination, check, strength, check, flexibility, check, endurance, check. It is all in there!
If you think about it, most locomotive things we do have the single-leg loading mechanism built right into it; walking, stairs, running, jumping, and cutting. If our single leg squat performance was like shocks on a car, these results can give us real-time feedback on how each individual leg can take the stress of us in this up and down manner.
And for the runner’s out there, did you know that statistically, each time your foot hits the ground, that is 2-3 times your body weight! Wow, now think about how important having a strong single leg needs to be! Go ahead and test yourself out in front of a mirror and see how you do!
To learn more, check out this other blog post: https://becomepowerful.com/squat-touchdowns-the-only-exercise-your-knees-need/
