Unilateral exercises have become all the rage and for a good reason. These exercises — which train one side of the body at a time, as opposed to both sides simultaneously — offer numerous benefits, such as pinpointing weaknesses, evening out strength, and honing in on technique. When you isolate one side at a time, you find shortcomings you didn’t know you had. Tackling these shortcomings leads to progress across the board.

The fitness community has come to understand that unilateral exercises belong in just about any training routine, regardless of what sport you practice. There’s no denying you stand to gain a lot from these drills if you train in functional fitness or Olympic weightlifting.

What are some examples of unilateral exercises? Think of things like one-arm strict presses with dumbbells, walking lunges, and one-arm dumbbell rows. Another excellent unilateral exercise? Bulgarian split squats. Here’s Brent Fikowski knocking out a few reps — with added weight, of course.

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A post shared by Brent Fikowski (@fikowski) on Sep 3, 2018 at 4:30pm PDT

When you do these, you want to be sure the knee of your front leg doesn’t go past your toes. Keep your torso upright, and make sure the descent is slow and deliberate.

You have a lot of options when it comes to Bulgarian split squats. Doing them with your own body weight might be challenging enough already, and that’s just fine! If you need to make them a little tougher, you can try holding dumbbells or kettlebells, like Fikowski did. You can also have a barbell in the front or back.

Start with something like three sets of 10 or 12, and approach with caution — you will feel the burn the next day.

Main image: Brent Fikowski/Instagram