Step Up Exercise:
Benefits of Step Ups

The step up exercise comes with an array of benefits that may be just what you need to boost your leg training progress, or to destroy a pesky plateau.

If you think you want to do this exercise, then you should read more on step ups and browse through these tips on barbell step ups before using it during your workouts.

Step Up Benefits. This is an awesome leg exercise. Check out its benefits below to see some key advantages of implementing step ups into your routine.

• Improve Symmetry & Balance. The step up is a unilateral leg exercise, which means that you train each leg independently. The result is that you improve the symmetry of your leg musculature. And as I'm sure you could imagine, doing an exercise on one leg also improves your balance.
• Increase Your Strength on Squats & Deadlifts. Want to squat and deadlift more? Step ups can help. First off, they increase your overall leg strength, as any leg exercise would. Second, as I had mentioned, it's is a unilateral exercise; therefore, in addition to fixing muscle size imbalances, it fixes strength imbalances that are holding back your progress on bilateral leg exercises (i.e. squats and deadlifts). You see, it's common to hit plateaus on bilateral exercises because you can unknowingly favor your stronger side; thus, your weaker side becomes your weakest link and retards your overall progress.
• Save Your Lower Back. You use a whole lot less weight with step ups than you do with squats. This is obvious considering that step ups involve the same basic movement as squats, except you use just one leg. So this exercise can be clutch if you have lower back issues; or if you are simply trying to work your lower body without hitting your lower back.

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