Advantages of Unilateral v. Bilateral movements

[gtbmed]

I've been doing a bit of thinking about this lately:

What are the advantages of bilateral movements?

Recently I've been using a lot more unilateral movements (e.g. DB presses, split squats, single leg RDLs) and it's seemed to help with balance/core stabilization more than the bilateral movements I used to do like back squats and SLDLs. I've really grown to think that unilateral movements are much more beneficial to overall functional strength.

So why do most people working out use bilateral movements? Every time I go to the gym, most people are doing these while working on core strength separately. It would seem most people could really benefit from doing more unilateral work.

 

[TheRhino]

to me there is alot of advantages to both sides, with like DB presses you work alot of your stabalizers, not to mention your making both sides push the same weight, which helps alot with balance, as where with straight bars you would be pushing more with your dominant side. but with straight bar presses you work alot of different muscles-abs,delts, pecs,tris. i really love using DBs, and doing stuff like split squats, ill even stand on one leg and do shrugs or stand on right leg and do a shoulder press with my left. they both have there benifits just mix it up every once in awhile.

 

[Gazhole]

Well, dumbell presses aren't unilateral movements as you're pressing with both sides? They require more stabilization than BB presses, yeah, but they are still bilateral.

Do some single arm DB bench presses, they're great.

But yeah, you've got it - unilateral movements require balance and stabilization, and a stronger side can't compensate for a weaker side.

The range of motion is also usually greater, for example with overhead press. If you're doing an overhead press with a barbell compared with a single armed overhead press with a dumbell, the ROM with the DB can be a lot more, which is always good.

The advantages of bilateral movements are that they recruit a lot more muscle at once, you're stabilizing an overall heavier weight, and because of those two things they require a lot more coordination and nervous activity at once.

Both have their advantages, so both should be used.

 

[gtbmed]

How do bilateral movements recruit more muscle at once? I would think a unilateral movement would recruit more muscles, since it requires much greater stabilization from other muscles not necessarily involved in the movement.