Though I prefer single leg movements for various reason and they make up the majority of our strength work, especially in-season, I do incorporate bilateral strength work in the off-season via Trap Bar DL with our hockey population when trying to build general strength.

We like this more then Back Squatting or Front Squatting when training bilaterally for a handful of reasons like zero spinal loading, easier pattern to grasp for most people, less joints involved leading to a lower barrier of entry, etc.

But the biggest reason ➖ we can avoid deeper hip flexion with a population that we know doesn’t handle deep hip flexion well. We know that generally speaking when training bilaterally, hip flexion at or around 90 degrees coupled with internal rotation of the hip irritates hip issues like FAI that are common in hockey populations ➖ so we generally stay away from it. The Trap Bar doesn’t demand near the hip flexion that squatting does. We then get most of our deeper hip flexion/squatting work unilaterally via RFE Split Squats/1-Leg Squats etc that for some reason generally tends to not bother hips (better joint centration in a unilateral stance? 🤷‍♂️).

Here we are simply performing 3 sets of 5 reps with a 3 second lowering as part of our GPP work.