Lower Body Problems

Hi everyone!

Foundation is going great but when it comes to SLS I'm having a little bit of trouble. My legs are really weak as I never have been able to train them properly due to knee problems. I ended up having a knee surgery and after 2 years I feel I'm completely recovered so I am aiming for my single leg squat. Anyway, straight to the point, my right leg is weaker than my left leg, so basically I can do SLS squats pretty much already with my left leg but I cannot even perform PE2 with my right leg without collapsing on the ground.

I've been stuck with 5x15 Deck Squats for a while and I can complete them with ease but I can't move to PE2. What can I do? Continue with deck squats and mobility until I'm able so? A little weight training for strength? It will mean a lot to me to finish foundation for my legs as I've always wanted to train them properly.

PD: I've asked my doctor plenty of times and I have already done all my therapy and rehab.

Have you tried doing the exercise for static holds to build up strength on the weaker leg? I would even add using some sort of assistance (hands on the floor) to work through the ROM of the exercise with less load would also help. We did a form of PE2 as a static stretch in my aikido class and it was brutal on me knees until I did them supported on my arms for a few weeks.

It sounds like the issue is that on deck squats you rely mostly on your good leg, and the bad leg doesn't get much benefit. I would recommend training the bottom of the cossack squat on your bad leg as a static exercise; you could use a light support initially if it's too hard. Alternatively, you could use weight to gradually build up strength. 

You could perhaps treat the cossack squat like you would a box squat. Lower to a box that's just at the end of your rom, and slowly lower the box.

The question more is regarding the sensation you feel as your leg collapses. Is it mainly a loss of power and you just fall? Is it instability in your knee that causes you to stop apply power? 

The second one could be improved in the short term with a good knee wrap and is more complicated, and the first one has already been discussed.

Yeah I've realized before that my strong leg takes most of the impact, that's why I wanted to start workoing on some single leg work.

The static hold does not feel bad actually with my finger tips on the ground so I will deffinately stick with it. My ROM it's pretty limited with the box but at least is something.

My leg collapses because my quad atrophied a lot due to the surgery so my knee cannot hold much pressure, so yeah it's pretty unstable.

I guess I just need to be patient and persever a bit more . Thanks for the advice aprecciate it and sorry about my english haha !

Paaaaul said:

Yeah I've realized before that my strong leg takes most of the impact, that's why I wanted to start workoing on some single leg work.

 

The static hold does not feel bad actually with my finger tips on the ground so I will deffinately stick with it. My ROM it's pretty limited with the box but at least is something.

 

My leg collapses because my quad atrophied a lot due to the surgery so my knee cannot hold much pressure, so yeah it's pretty unstable.

 

I guess I just need to be patient and persever a bit more . Thanks for the advice aprecciate it and sorry about my english haha !

Yeah, I'd try working up to something like 5x30s of the static hold before moving on to the dynamic exercise.