Tennis Ball Assisted Single Leg Squat
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Tennis Ball Assisted Single Leg Squat
At MBSC we’ve found this Single Leg Squat regression to be one of our most helpful. I like using the tennis ball variation when clients depend too much on upper body strength and hang off the TRX. Since this drill provides lower body assistance it demands that they keep a natural squat pattern not allowing them to sit back too far on the box.
Notes:
– Have the client put a tennis ball under the forefoot/toes of the non-active leg.
– Cue them to press down as lightly as possible on the ball for assistance when needed. – The ball shouldn’t crush under load. If necessary grab a harder ball for more assistance (baseball/lacrosse ball).
– Have the client focus on controlling the eccentric portion of the drill. They should work on lowering slowly and lightly tapping the box. They should not bounce off the box.
– As client improves increase depth until their femur is at or slightly below parallel to the ground.
– I recommend programming Single Leg Squats at lower repetitions with more sets initially to focus on quality. Clients will often fatigue quickly if they lack single leg hip stability. By building volume slowly I’ll through multiple lower rep sets I find the quality of the efforts to be much higher. I’ll often progress them like this:
3 x 5 >> 4 x 5 >> 5 x 5 >> 4 x 6 >> 4 x 8
Try out this variation and loading progression and let us know your thoughts! If you are interested in learning more progressions like this checkout one of our @certifiedfsc courses!