The one-legged knee bend is often called the king’s exercise in dead body weight training. It requires not only a high degree of mobility and strength, but also a good balance of coordination and dexterity.

This test helps you to check whether your mobility in the ankle joints and hips is sufficient for the deep final position of the one-legged squat and whether sufficient strength (leg, buttock, hip and trunk muscles) is available.

  • Take an upright hip-wide stand
  • Shift the weight to one foot
  • Extend your arms forward at shoulder level to maintain better balance
  • Push the buttocks backwards and down and bend the supporting leg to the maximum.
  • Stretch the free leg forward
  • Lower your buttocks until the back thigh touches the calf.
  • Keep the free leg parallel above the floor
  • Push yourself up again to the starting position

The heels keep contact with the ground during the whole execution

This “Testing” gives you information about your status quo in a simplified form. A kind of functional anamnesis. It helps you to get a picture of your functionality and quality of movement, to filter out your strengths and weaknesses and it should help you to develop a feeling if your body, joints, muscles, certain movements are rusty or not. With your results you can determine which areas are more in need of attention or need more attention.

Silvester Neidhardt