Skip to main content
Also known as: Chair pistol squat, Half one-leg squat.

Technique

  1. Balance on one leg, holding the other leg straight in front of you.
  2. Squat on your leg halfway down, until your thigh is parallel to the ground.
  3. Extend your leg to get back to the starting position.

Form tips

  • The non-working leg is straight the whole time and doesn’t touch the ground.
  • The working foot stays flat on the ground.
  • The working knee moves forward in line with the toes.
  • Aim to keep your back straight.
Logging: Repetitions done on one side.

Muscles

Strength

Primary

  • Glutes
  • Hamstrings
  • Quadriceps

Secondary

  • Hip adductors
  • Pelvis
  • Gluteus maximus
  • Semitendinosus
  • Semimembranosus
  • Biceps femoris (long)
  • Rectus femoris
  • Vastus medialis
  • Vastus intermedius
  • Vastus lateralis

Equipment

Appears in

Calisthenics skills
Joint movements
trains stretches

Progressions

e07v

Pistol squat

Intermediate
e14r

Weighted pistol squat

Intermediate

Regressions

e0ss

One Leg Chair Squat

Novice
e0y4

Curtsy lunge

Novice
e0q2

Kneeling lunge lifts

Novice
e0al

Single-leg lunge

Intermediate
e01t

Assisted pistol squat

Intermediate
w01g

Lunge tap and open

Intermediate
Want to log this exercise? Open it in Calistree. Text and images are used under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; the video plays from the original source.