Lateral Bounds: How to Do Them, Muscles Worked and Benefits

Lateral bounds are a sideways, single-leg plyometric jump: you push off one leg, leap sideways and land on the other, holding that landing for a moment before going back the other way. They train side-to-side power and, just as usefully, the ability to land on one leg without your knee folding inward. If you play football, netball, tennis or any sport with cutting, or you're a runner whose hips get lazy late in a race, they belong in your week.

The movement looks like a speed skater's stride, which is why you'll also see it called the skater bound or skater jump. All you need is about 3m of clear floor or grass and decent trainers.

How to do lateral bounds

1. Start on one leg. Stand on your right foot with a soft knee, hips pushed back a little and your chest tilted slightly forward. Your left foot hovers just off the floor.
2. Load the hip. Sink a few centimetres into your right hip, as if starting a small single-leg squat. Swing both arms across to the right to wind up.
3. Push sideways. Drive hard through your whole right foot and jump to your left, swinging your arms across your body in the direction of travel. Think of pushing the ground away from you rather than jumping up.
4. Land on the left leg. Touch down on your left foot (whole foot, not just toes) with your hip and knee bent to soak up the force. Your right leg swings behind your left ankle without touching the floor.
5. Stick it. Hold the landing for a full 2 seconds, balanced and quiet. Then load the left hip and bound back to the right.

Land with the knee pointing roughly over the second toe. A slight forward lean through the hips is fine and helps your glutes take the load; an upright torso tends to shove the force into your knee instead.

Muscles worked

• Glute medius and glute max. The glute medius on the side of your hip stops your pelvis dropping and your knee caving when you land on one leg; the glute max does much of the pushing. This is the main reason to do lateral bounds rather than another forward jump.
• Adductors. Your inner thighs help push you off sideways and steady the landing leg. Strong adductors matter in any sport with cutting or quick changes of direction.
• Quads. They straighten the knee for the push and control knee bend on the landing.
• Calves and ankle stabilisers. The final push comes off the ball of the foot, and the small muscles around the ankle keep you from rolling on landing.
• Core. Your trunk has to stay steady while your body moves sideways, so your obliques get a surprising amount of work.

If you want more hip and adductor strength to back up the jumping, lateral lunges and single-leg deadlifts are good slow-speed partners for this exercise.

Benefits

Sideways power that forward jumps miss. Box jumps, jump squats and broad jumps all move you up or forward on two legs. Lateral bounds cover the frontal plane on one leg, which is how you actually change direction on a pitch or court.

Fixing left-right imbalances. Because each leg works alone, a weaker side shows itself quickly. A 2025 meta-analysis of eight trials found that unilateral plyometric training reduced lower-limb asymmetry in athletes, with the largest effect on single-leg lateral jump performance. Bilateral plyometric work didn't produce the same effect, which is a decent argument for single-leg jumps like this one.

Knee control. Learning to land softly on one leg with the knee tracking over the foot is the core of most knee-injury prevention programmes. A meta-analysis of 14 trials in female athletes found neuromuscular training cut knee injury rates, with the biggest reductions in mid-teens. Those programmes mixed jumping, landing and balance work, so lateral bounds are one piece of that puzzle rather than the whole answer. For a wider routine, see our knee strengthening exercises.

For runners, a useful extra. Running is almost all forward motion, and lateral bounds give your hips and ankles something different to cope with. Be realistic about the payoff, though. A systematic review of 22 studies found plyometric training gave only a trivial improvement in running economy, smaller than heavy resistance training. Treat bounds as stability and resilience work, and keep your heavy lifts.

Sets and reps

How you programme lateral bounds depends on what you want from them. Do them after your warm-up and before any heavy lifting, while your legs are fresh.

Goal	Sets x reps	Rest	Focus
Landing control (beginners)	3 x 4 per leg	45 to 60 seconds	Short jumps, 2 to 3 second hold
Power	3 to 4 x 4 to 6 per leg	60 to 90 seconds	Max distance, full stick each rep
Conditioning	3 to 4 x 20 to 30 seconds continuous	30 to 60 seconds	Quick, rhythmic skater bounds

Two sessions a week is plenty, ideally with at least a day between them. Mark your landing spot with a cone or a strip of tape and try to beat it over a few weeks without losing the stick.

Common mistakes

Knee collapsing inward on landing. This is the big one. It usually means the jump went further than your hip can control. Cut the distance and work on the hold.

Landing stiff-legged. Hitting the floor with a straight knee sends the impact straight up into your joints. Bend at the hip and knee as you touch down, and aim to land quietly.

Jumping up instead of across. A high, loopy bound wastes effort and makes the landing harder. Push sideways and keep the arc fairly low.

Rushing the next rep. In a power set, wobbling out of one landing and straight into the next jump turns a control drill into a scramble. Hold each landing until you're still.

Forgetting the arms. A strong arm swing adds distance and helps balance. Keeping your hands on your hips makes the drill harder in an unhelpful way.

Doing them tired. Bounds at the end of a heavy leg day get sloppy fast. Fatigue is when landing mechanics break down, so put them early in the session.

Progressions and regressions

Start at the level where every landing is controlled, and move up only when the current step feels easy.

1. Lateral step and hold. Step sideways onto one leg and hold for 3 seconds. No airtime, just practice landing on one leg with good alignment.
2. Skater hop (small). A short hop of 30cm to 50cm with a 2 second hold. This is where most people should begin.
3. Lateral bound with stick. The full exercise described above, gradually extending the distance.
4. Continuous lateral bounds. Drop the hold and bound rhythmically side to side, absorbing each landing and redirecting straight away. More reactive and more demanding on the tendons.
5. Resisted band bounds. Attach a long resistance band around your waist, anchored to one side, and bound away from the anchor. The band also pulls you on the return, which challenges landing control.
6. Weighted vest bounds. Add a light weighted vest, around 5% to 10% of bodyweight, for the stick-and-hold version only. Keep continuous bounds unweighted, since the extra landing force adds up quickly.

Plyometric training does work for jumping: a 2025 meta-analysis found it improved countermovement jump performance more than routine training. But that improvement comes from regular, good-quality reps, not from piling on load. Most people get plenty from the bodyweight version for months.

Safety

Warm up first with 5 to 10 minutes of easy movement plus a few lateral lunges and small hops. Train on a forgiving, non-slip surface such as grass, a sports hall floor or rubber gym flooring; avoid polished floors and wet tiles. Wear trainers with some lateral support, since running shoes with a tall, soft heel can roll on sideways landings.

If you have a current knee or ankle injury, or you're coming back from one, start with the lateral step and hold and get a physio's go-ahead before adding real jumping. Pain during or after a session that lingers into the next day means the volume or distance was too high.

You can find more jump and conditioning sessions on our workouts hub.

Recommended reads

• Box jump: how to do it, muscles worked and benefits
• Broad jump: technique, muscles worked and a simple plan
• Lateral lunge: how to do it and muscles worked
• The best weighted vests in the UK
• Knee strengthening exercises