I wanted to showcase this exercise as most athletes will focus on squats, deadlifts and power cleans when it comes to developing power and speed. All of these exercises will help, however, the Bulgarian split squats shouldn’t be dismissed. In a way, the Bulgarian split squat mirrors the body movement that someone will make when they are sprinting. And if someone does plyometric movements like bounding, you will find that the same muscles are used for developing power, strength, explosiveness and speed. Even if you do step ups, you will need the foundation strength to improve your performance over time. So it makes sense to develop the strength from this movement with a weighted exercises.
Below are videos that will show you how to do the movement successfully. It is important that you get the movement right. This will minimise the chances of you getting an injury.
When doing the exercise, remember that you want to get deep into the exercise and focus on developing the strength and power in your glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps.
How many repetitions should you aim for?
You want to do a minimum of 8-10 repetitions and aim for 3 sets.
Start with your body weight. You will need to develop your stablising muscles with the movement. As you become more controlled with the movement, you can start to add more weight to the exercise.
What weight should I aim to so with this movement?
You can develop your leg strength fairly quickly. It would be ideal if you can set a long-term target of 90kg.
Are there other benefits?
Yes. You should notice that the strength gains will carryover to your other exercise movements, such as bounding, running, jumping and the other weighted movements.
