There are certain strength camps/coaches that do make a good case for switching to unilateral exercises and increasing load on those as opposed to excessively loading bilateral movements such as the squat and deadlift that place a large amount of compressive force on the spine. The basic argument is this:
- unilateral work more appropriately addresses imbalances that are neglected by bilateral work
-it allows you to successfully overload the muscle without using heavy weight that taxes the spine
-it elicits the same kind of hormonal response as the core lifts when structured and programmed correctly ie; proper rest time, reps, sets, tempo, etc.
I agree that there is a lot of merit to his argument. But were I running a football program or a collegiate athletics program and you said "hey I've got one guy who squats 600lbs and one guy who can do ten pistols with a weight vest." I, for one, would choose the 600lb squatter 99 times put of a hundred. I think opening other coaches minds to the idea of lunges, single leg sldl's, weighted pistols, etc is very important to get coaches past the traditional "how much can you bench?" NFL combine mentality because those other attributes are very important. I just don't know that I'm ready to do away with squatting and all it's benefits yet.
