The New Essential Leg Exercise
It started with a simple “huh.” I was scrolling Instagram a few months ago when I saw my friend Andrew Coates’s feed. He had just posted a video of himself hitting a tough set of supported Bulgarian split squats, also known as Hatfield squats for the gym crowd. It looked like about 365 pounds for five reps.
As I said, at first I was like “huh.” Then I was like, “damn, that’s strong.” And then I was like, “pffft, I want in on this parade.” At that point I was roughly five to six weeks post Achilles repair and training pretty aggressively in the gym. I was still looking for ways to expand or improve my Trainable Menu—focusing on stuff I could train rather than stuff I couldn’t.
A day or two later I posted a video of myself doing close to 300 pounds for six to eight reps on my non-injured leg. I tagged Andrew, who then tagged a few other colleagues inspired by his feats; one of them was Luka Hocevar, owner of Vigor Ground Fitness in Renton, WA. A friendly bit of competition ensued.
Each week we continued to post our progress, and I enjoyed it, which was odd because, despite what coaches online try to pretend, I hate doing single-leg work. I mean, I hate it. Things I hate… Nazis, kipping pull-ups, people who wax poetic about keto. And then there was single-leg work and talking about feelings.
Anyway, Andrew, Luka, and I teamed up to write an article for T-Nation.com that just went live. In it we break down everything to do with the Supported Bulgarian Split Squat and why you should consider adding it to your training arsenal.
I still do it, of course, but have I mentioned how much I hate doing it? I hate it.
