LIFESTYLE
All The Great Benefits Of Lateral Exercises
By SARAH VULPIO
Balance And Coordination
Since you have to keep yourself upright during lateral exercises, you’re inherently bettering your ability to hold yourself up for any period of time, thereby improving your balance, coordination, and stability. To build the latter, Active suggests exercises like lateral step-ups, single leg touchdowns, and the ice skater.
Increased Deadlift Weight
Lateral exercises can vastly improve your frontal plane strength, which in turn increases your weight capacity for heavy compound lifts like squats and deadlifts. Through lateral workouts, you’ll notice a more stabilized frontal plane, which means you’re less likely to lose energy during these lifts.
Strengthened Muscles
It’s no surprise that lateral exercises strengthen your leg muscles, particularly your quads and hamstrings. Side lunges are an excellent example of a lateral exercise: As you lean to one side, you’re putting the majority of your weight on your thighs, building muscle while also increasing your inner thighs’ flexibility.
Speed And Efficiency
By strengthening the muscles in the hips, glutes, core, and back that you use for lateral and transverse motions, lateral exercises improve your overall speed and efficiency. To really build these muscles, Laura Norris Running says to choose any lateral exercise that focuses on controlled movements.
Stabilized Hips And Pelvis
These exercises can also help to stabilize your pelvis and hips, which play an important role in improving your overall physical health. Hip stabilization also stabilizes the joints in your knee, which lessens your risk of knee pain, while a stabilized pelvis is necessary to properly support your spine.