In my new column on Return of Kings, I discuss unilateral weight training, and why it will give you strength gains you can scarcely believe.

…But if you really want to develop earth-rending muscular power you are going to have to use some unconventional lifts as well. And the king of unconventional training is exactly what the title is implying: unilateral training!

Unilateral training is exactly what it sounds like—training that is done with either one arm or leg, or further removing fingers from the equation. Traditionally, strongmen have advocated unilateral training just as much as, if not more so, than traditional training with two arms and/or legs. After all, if you can do with one hand what others need two hands to do, just think of what you can do when you actually are using both arms.

Of course, if you diligently read and practice the information in my articles, you already know how to do one-handed pushups and one-leg squats. Thus, the simplest way to put unilateral weight training into your routine is just to do these calisthenics with added weight: just hold a dumbbell during these exercises and the difficulty will exponentially increase.

You can also “up the difficulty” on things such as splitting apples and other forms of grip training that I have also discussed—once you can split an apple with two hands, you can try crushing an apple with one hand…

Some traditional lifts can, in fact, be done unilaterally, and can in some cases be trained to be much stronger than a normal man’s two handed lift. The two that I have learned, and will be teaching today, will be the one-handed overhead press (in its basic form, perhaps another article will discuss variants of it such as the bent press that you have probably seen in old comic books) and the one-handed deadlift.

Read it here