Slow eccentric pistol squats on a balancing board

[Jin Liu]

Hi, I heard slow eccentric tend to be very effective at strengthening muscle and tendon. I have a hamstring injury (old injury flaring up) right now. But pistol squats don’t seem to irritate it. Would it be a bad idea to do this (like 5 each side, alternating) on a regular basis for a period of time? 
Thank you in advance.
 

 

[Alessandro Mainente]

7 hours ago, Jin Liu said:

Hi, I heard slow eccentric tend to be very effective at strengthening muscle and tendon. I have a hamstring injury (old injury flaring up) right now. But pistol squats don’t seem to irritate it. Would it be a bad idea to do this (like 5 each side, alternating) on a regular basis for a period of time? 
Thank you in advance.
 

 

WELL when to just this type of exercise always remember one point: body adapts specifically, this means that you will become very proficient on unstable exercise. there is the wrong idea that working on unstable surfaces can restore and or improve strength but this is a super or fallacy consideration. unstable performance is possible because there is the co-contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles, in the long term since the strength development is done with antagonist inhibition you are simply reducing the capacity of generating strength of the agonist because in order to stabilize the joint the antagonist is co-contracted with the agonist.

working on an unstable surface can be done in sports if your sports provide stress on an unstable surface, if not...is primarily..... more a loss of time, the ratio cost: benefit is not favorable.

adding to that should be considered the type of the previous injury, if the previous injury happened due to wrong intensity/ volume, bad technique, or programming then the problem won't be solved with an unstable surface.

a situation where this work can happen is the ankle sprain especially if you run on the road or if you do free climbing or parkour...but for example, if you run on a normal track and field facility...it has less utility.

of course, if you have to decide to do it or not....is better to do a bit of that...but do not lose the specificity of your activity.

[Jin Liu]

Thank you so much for the detailed response @Alessandro Mainente!! This will not be the only thing I do. I will keep doing my regular barbell squats and deadlifts, etc. at a very low weight for now to accommodate my leg injury.
 

The reason for this unstable one leg squat is it offers a very good amount of loading without triggering pain. I believe I have a proximal hamstring tendinopathy, which first occurred years ago but was never properly rehabbed. So now it keeps coming back. Traditional squats and deadlifts hurt, but weirdly single leg squats don’t. It may have to do with the leg/hip angle in the single leg squat vs a two leg squat. So basically I want to rehab and strengthen ham/glutes, and this exercise is one of those that offer really good loading in the glutes without triggering much pain. I’m just not sure if it will add too much stress to the knees if I do it too much. It won’t be the only thing I do. I will also do hamstring specific rehab, and add more traditional loading as the pain is going away. 

[Alessandro Mainente]

15 hours ago, Jin Liu said:

Thank you so much for the detailed response @Alessandro Mainente!! This will not be the only thing I do. I will keep doing my regular barbell squats and deadlifts, etc. at a very low weight for now to accommodate my leg injury.
 

The reason for this unstable one leg squat is it offers a very good amount of loading without triggering pain. I believe I have a proximal hamstring tendinopathy, which first occurred years ago but was never properly rehabbed. So now it keeps coming back. Traditional squats and deadlifts hurt, but weirdly single leg squats don’t. It may have to do with the leg/hip angle in the single leg squat vs a two leg squat. So basically I want to rehab and strengthen ham/glutes, and this exercise is one of those that offer really good loading in the glutes without triggering much pain. I’m just not sure if it will add too much stress to the knees if I do it too much. It won’t be the only thing I do. I will also do hamstring specific rehab, and add more traditional loading as the pain is going away. 

hey Jin..you mean closer to the hips? if yes avoid deep squat because when you reverse the movement the glutes have too little mechanical advantage leverage compared to the long head of the hamstring and it is pulled a lot. a suggest working only closer to hips extension like half rom hip trust.

[Jin Liu]

18 hours ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

hey Jin..you mean closer to the hips? if yes avoid deep squat because when you reverse the movement the glutes have too little mechanical advantage leverage compared to the long head of the hamstring and it is pulled a lot. a suggest working only closer to hips extension like half rom hip trust.

Yes, it’s high in the hamstring, connecting the glutes. I will be careful, and not overdo it. The pain was bad at first even going up the stairs, but now it’s subsided. It’s interesting when I researched online, one review paper says no really effective method is known for managing this high/proximal hamstring tendinopathy. But then another paper with a case study showed a powerlifter who failed most traditional rehab for this condition improved with slow eccentric loading therapy (deadlifts, sumo deads, squats, lunges, etc). With progressive loading of course. So I’m curious  . I like slow eccentric loading, with lots of precautions of course.