Split Squat with Dumbbells

Legs · Dumbbell · one side at a time

How to do it

Back foot on a bench at knee height, front foot a long step ahead. Lower vertically until the back knee nearly touches the floor, torso upright to load the quad or leaning slightly to load the glute. Stand by driving through the front leg. It is one of the highest-yield exercises per set and one of the hardest: you feel the quad or the glute, and your balance. The classic mistake is too short a stance, which hammers the knee.

Variants

The drawing is a split squat with the rear foot on the floor. In the Bulgarian that foot goes on a bench, and that is where most of the difficulty comes from.

The drawing shows one way of doing it, and the technique above describes that one. Almost every exercise has variants — standing or seated, the grip, the bench angle — and is still the same exercise: if you do it another way, write it in the exercise note and you will have it every time you train it.

Also works: Glutes, Core

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