Unilateral Leg Day: A Rehabilitation Journey to Stronger Hips and Pain-free Deadlifts

If this was my last leg day on earth, this is everything I would want to do. I’m starting off with some single leg RDLs into a knee drive. If you could be sponsored by a unilateral movement, I would want this to be it. Single leg ardials were really easy for my patient Paul to do on his right, but on his left, not so much. He felt extremely off balance and like his hip was getting pulled out to the side on the way down. Interestingly, this was the same side. He had been dealing with hip and back pain for almost three years when deadlifting. Now, during my evaluation, I found his right hip was really strong with this test, but his left, not so much. I could easily force it down, showing in big instability. So during his McGill big three core routine, I had him do his side planks from his knee to not only get the core, but also involve the glute for a 10 second hold. And because the single leg deadlifts were pretty tough, we progressed to a B stance deadlift to rework the hinge motions, cueing to open the hip to engage the glute and then hinge. This really lit up his glutes, and this plan allowed him to deadlift that day without any pain, showing he was now on the right track.