Have you ever had an injury on one side of your body and you didn't exercise for weeks or months because you thought it would be best to allow that side/part of your body to heal. The University of Copenhagen did a study which proved that inactivity in a limb resulted to a strength decrease of 33% in that untrained limb. Furthermore, the study found that the fitter the person the quicker they lost muscle mass and it takes 3 times as long to recover the lost strength. But now you are wondering what can I do ?.. I cant exercise because I'm injured. Wrong...
Unilateral training, also known as cross education, are the names given to an untrained limb increasing in strength and maintaining its muscle mass through training only one part/side of your body. There are numerous studies to prove that one sided training will have a beneficial effect on the untrained limb; an increase of 7-11% strength will be gained in the untrained limb from training the other side.
Tip: Instead of doing nothing when you have an injury, train the other side to ensure that all your hard work will not be sacrificed. Although the untrained limb will have less strength gains than the trained limb it is obviously better than not training at all and losing muscle and strength.
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