Stop F*cking Up Bulgarian Split Squats (PROPER FORM!)

Do you know how to do a bulgarian split squat? If not, you’re in luck. In this video, I am going to show you exactly how to perform a dumbbell bulgarian split squat so that you can perform the exercise every time without making a mistake. Remember, it’s not just what exercise you do, but how you do

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see  someone performing my favorite leg exercise, the Bulgarian Split Squat, and it makes my heart  sing. But the problem is they’re fucking it up and that’s not good. So, I have to make sure that I  do my job as a coach and show you exactly how to do this exercise right. And the problem is, 90% of  the problems with the exercise and the things that you get wrong happen because you don’t set up the  proper way. So how do you set up?

Well, there’s a couple things you can do right from the beginning  before you even sink down into a single rep. And that is, sit down on the bench with the dumbbells  on your thighs and extend one leg out. And when you do, move it just a little bit more  to the outside, because that heel position is where your foot is going to go if you want to do  this exercise properly. So, I put my dumbbells down just like that, I stand up, maintain that  same heel position, nothing’s moved. Now, I take my back foot and I put it back on the bench.

Now  how do you put it on the bench? Because this is where people get this wrong too. A lot of times  people will just put their toe right up on top of the bench like this. And the problem is you’ve  got very little point of contact on the bench, meaning you have a lot harder time balancing. If you could just turn your foot like this, now you’ve got more contact area with the foot,  which gives you more balance.

The second thing is by getting into this position here, rather than  straight down on the bench like this, you don’t have to have that plantar flexion requirement in  range of motion that you might need to do this this way you get that more natural supination  of the foot that gives you a chance to get it done a little bit more easily from here. Remember, the dumbbells are already in place, so all I have to do is drop down and pick  them up. And by putting that leg out to the side just a little bit, I create a little  bit of a widening of my base of support, a little width between this leg and that leg,  which further increases your balance. Now, for those of us who don’t want to do it on a  bench, you can break out that pussy pad, you know, the one that people shamed you out of using and  put it around a barbell in a rack. And what this does is it gives you a rotating placement  for that back leg, which will actually allow you to smoothly go up and down without having to  worry so much about that back foot placement.

But regardless of whether you use that option  or the traditional bench, what comes next is your torso angle, and that determines what part  of your leg you’re actually working. Because if you want to work your quads, you ve got to stay  very upright the entire time that you perform the exercise. Because staying upright is going to  force that knee flexion to occur in this angle, which is going to make the quad do most of the  work in terms of getting you back to the top. If I wanted to ship this focus to the posterior  chain, all I have to do is angle my torso forward so that when I go down to the bottom, I look  more like I’m in the beginning of a sprinter starting block here. And what that does is  it shifts the focus to the back side into the glutes.

And when I come out of that, I  maintain that same angle of the torso. Now, as far as depth goes, you want  to make sure that you’re going down to the ground with the dumbbells, but  you don’t want to rest down there. So, if I get down to the bottom and I let go,  we don’t want that because you’re taking the tension out of the working leg. So, I  just want to be able to make contact here, but still support the entire weight of the  dumbbell in my hands and then push up. Now, if you want to give yourself a little bit of a  cheat mechanism, especially if you’re starting to get a little bit more fatigued, you tilt the  front of the dumbbells down.

So, what this does is it shortens how far I have to go before I make  contact with the ground and come out of it. That gives you a chance to do an abbreviated  repetition without having to rely on doing quarter reps or half reps, because I find that  when you start to do the quarter and half reps, that you start to alter the mechanics of the  exercise, and you never really dig into the quads or the glutes enough to stimulate  them. So, utilizing this little tilt of the dumbbells doesn’t alter the mechanics of the  exercise, it just marginally alters the depth. Finally, when it comes to intensity techniques,  this exercise is tailor made to allow you to really, really start creating growth because you  can do so many interesting things. First of all, paused reps in this stretch position.

The  second thing you can do one and a half reps, which is going to accentuate the time that you  spend under tension in that stretch position. Thirdly, you can do explosive repetitions. You  can even drop the weight altogether and perform these as one legged plyo Bulgarian Split  Squats. The options are endless, guys. The fact is it is my favorite leg exercise for  a reason because of how multi-dimensional it is.

If you want to know how to do not just  this, but a Face Pull or a Lat Pull Down, you can check those videos out here. Click  Subscribe and turn on Notifications so you never miss a video when we put one out. All right  guys, good luck. I hope this helps. See you.