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If building stronger glutes and quads is your goal, then the Bulgarian split squat, also known as a rear-foot elevated split squat, is one move you definitely want to add to your leg-day routine.
As its name implies, the Bulgarian split squat works a similar movement pattern as the traditional squat: You push your hips back, bend your knees, and lower until your thigh is parallel to the ground. (Here’s more on how to do squats.) But unlike the traditional squat—where both feet are on the ground—the Bulgarian split squat requires your back foot to remain elevated.
This makes it a unilateral exercise, meaning it works one leg at a time, similar to related exercises like the lunge. And that’s important because most movements we do in everyday life are done with a single leg.
“We don’t walk or run on both feet at the same time. We don’t sleep or sit, or really do anything evenly on both sides of our bodies,” Morit Summers, a NSCA-certified personal trainer, owner of Form Fitness Brooklyn, and author of Big & Bold: Strength Training for the Plus-Size Woman, tells SELF. “Our weight shifts and distributes differently throughout many movements and things that we do in life, so it is really important to do single-leg exercises in order to keep our bodies strong.”
Honing your single-leg strength helps improve your balance and stabilize your body in motion, which can help prevent injuries. For instance, if you need to quickly step onto a curb, balanced single-leg strength can make sure you execute the movement cleanly, without tipping off or rolling an ankle.
There are tons of benefits of the split squat (which we’ll get into in just a moment) but it’s not exactly the best exercise for beginners—the Bulgarian split squat is a challenging move, both because of the balance needed and because it pretty much has you working the entire time. If you’re a more advanced exerciser, though, it’s a great move to add to the mix. Here, everything you need to know about Bulgarian split squats, including their benefits, how to do the exercise, and how to incorporate them into your workout routine.
What are Bulgarian split squats good for?
Bulgarian split squats are great for building balanced strength in your lower body. Although the quads and glutes of your standing leg are the primary Bulgarian split squat muscles being worked, your hamstrings (back of your thighs), adductors (inner thighs), and calves (backside of lower leg) also get in on the action, says Summers.
“Our glutes in a Bulgarian split squat go through a full range of motion stretch at the bottom of the exercise, or in hip flexion,” Summers says. “In order to come up out of the bottom position, we must push through the floor and use our hip extension muscles—the glutes—to stand up. Similarly, our quads contract as we go down to the bottom of the Bulgarian split squat. They are helping us not just fall to the floor on the descent.”
Strengthening your glutes is essential for carrying out daily activities, such as walking, sitting down and standing back up, and picking things up from the ground, as well as for athletic performance. Your glutes are power-producing muscles needed for running, jumping, and other explosive movements, and they’re also huge drivers in exercises like the deadlift.
But it’s not just about your lower body. One of the most underrated Bulgarian split squat benefits is that it also fortifies your core. Because Bulgarian split squats challenge your balance, you also recruit your core to help you stabilize and stand upright.
“You have to brace in a loaded position, which helps you build core strength,” Sal Nakhlawi, a certified functional strength coach and founder of StrongHER Girls, tells SELF. For an extra core challenge, she says, you can hold dumbbells or a kettlebell in the racked position.
If you choose to hold your dumbbells or kettlebell at your sides, however, you’re bringing on another benefit: This helps you improve your grip strength, Nahklawi says. And that’s important for everything from cranking out chin-ups to opening a jar of salsa.
Why is the Bulgarian split squat so hard?
For starters, your rear foot is elevated, and doing any exercise on one leg versus two is always going to feel more challenging.
“First, balance is really hard for some people,” Summers says. “And, secondly, you never really get a moment for your muscles to relax during a set of Bulgarian split squats because your muscles are always under tension in that position.”
Even when you’re just standing with your rear foot elevated, your core muscles are engaged to help you balance. And when you’re actually squatting, you’re working multiple lower-body muscles at once, including your glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, adductors, and core, which adds to the challenge, Nakhlawi says.
What’s better: lunges or Bulgarian split squats?
One exercise isn’t necessarily better than the other, but one can be the better choice than others for you, based on things like your goals or your experience. For instance, if you’re new to exercise, and are considering whether to do a split squat versus a lunge, you may want to hold off on Bulgarian split squats until you are able to do lunge variations with proper form.
Let’s back up a little: A lunge is another lower-body exercise that involves stepping one foot forward (front lunge) or back (reverse lunge) and lowering your body down until your legs form 90-degree angles on both sides. The Bulgarian split squat is a progression of a lunge, so Summers says she would recommend either exercise based on someone’s strength and abilities.
“You shouldn’t be trying to do Bulgarian split squats before you’ve mastered a regular split squat, a back or front lunge, a step-up, and even walking lunges,” Summers says. “We need to understand how to squat with both feet on the ground and lunge with both feet on the ground before incorporating another element of stability and range of motion.”
On the other hand, if you’re a more advanced exerciser who has already mastered those moves and your goal is to build single-leg strength and improve balance while increasing load, then the Bulgarian split squat makes a great addition to your lower-body workouts.
How often should I do Bulgarian split squats?
There’s no perfect frequency for Bulgarian split squats; again, it’s going to depend on your goals. For the general exerciser, though, Summers says once a week is ideal, as long as you are familiar with the move and have mastered the aforementioned similar exercises first. Generally, Nakhlawi recommends doing Bulgarian split squats anytime you are doing lower-body or leg workouts.
But a more advanced exerciser might be able to handle more volume on this exercise and incorporate it more frequently into their workouts than a beginner who is still working on their technique.
The number of sets and reps you do will depend on your specific fitness goals and what you want out of your strength training session. For general fitness, the American Council on Exercise recommends doing 1 to 2 sets of 8 to 15 reps with light weight. As for more specific strength training goals? The organization recommends doing 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 16 reps of an exercise with light weight to build muscular endurance; 2 to 6 sets of 4 to 8 reps with heavy weight to build muscle strength; and 3 to 6 sets of 6 to 12 reps with heavy weight (so heavier than what you would use for endurance but not as heavy as strength) for building muscle.
Should I do Bulgarian split squats first in my workout?
You generally want to do your heaviest lifts at the start of your workout, Summers says. So if Bulgarian splits are going to be your heaviest or hardest movement of the day—say, for instance, the rest of your routine consists of band work or isolation moves like clamshells or glute kickbacks—then it makes sense to start with the split squats.
In many cases, though, Bulgarian split squats won’t be your heaviest moves of the day. If you’re doing other exercises on your leg day that are heavier or more challenging (say, back squats, deadlifts, or even bilateral squat variations with heavy weight), you’d want to do your Bulgarian split squats afterward. Because Bulgarian split squats are great accessory movements, meaning they usually aren’t your heaviest lifts, you can do them in the middle or end of your workout, Nakhlawi says.
How do you do a Bulgarian split squat?
Bulgarian split squat form is key to getting the most out of this movement, and there are a few Bulgarian split squat tips that can help you master it. First you want to get into a split squat position with one leg forward and the other elevated on a box, bench, or chair.
“From here, you’ll bend the front knee and descend into a lunge, slightly leaning forward,” Nakhlawi says. Then, you want to press your front foot into the ground to stand back up. You want to make sure that your front knee is stacked directly under your ankle throughout the movement so that your glutes—and not your knees—carry the load.
Here’s exactly how to to do a Bulgarian split squat:
- Stand with your back to your “bench.” With your left foot on the floor a few feet in front of the bench, place the top of your right foot on the bench, shoelaces down.
- Place your hands behind your head and engage your core. You can also clasp your hands at your chest or leave them at your sides if that feels more comfortable.
- Bend your knees to lower down into a split squat. Your left knee should ideally form a 90-degree angle so that your thigh is parallel to the ground, and your right knee is hovering above the floor. (Quick position check: Your left foot should be stepped out far enough that you can do this without letting your left knee go past your left toes—if you can’t, hop your left foot out a bit farther away from the bench.)
- Driving through your left heel, stand back up to starting position. Continue performing reps, and switch sides when they’re completed.
How can you progress the Bulgarian split squat?
When you first get started with the Bulgarian split squat, do it with just your bodyweight so you can get used to the move and the balance it requires, says Summers.
Once you’ve nailed down the bodyweight version of this move, you can try out different Bulgarian split squat variations. For example, Summers recommends playing with the height of your elevated rear foot and how far you stand away from the box or bench before adding weights or changing the position of the weights. There’s no set rule of thumb for how far away to stand to feel it more in your glutes—it depends on things like your height and your proportions—so trying out a few different stances can be helpful.
“Many times, people just feel their quads in a Bulgarian split squat—myself included,” Summers says. “It took me a long time to find a position that works to use more of the glute and less of my quads. So play with position; there is not one exact way to do this movement.”
When you’re ready to add weight, consider doing a kettlebell Bulgarian split squat or a dumbbell split squat (suitcase or front rack), an eccentric Bulgarian split squat (slowing down the descent), or a landmine Bulgarian split squat.
“Anytime you change where you hold a weight, it is challenging your stability and the use of different core muscles to help you perform an exercise,” Summers says
Trying different variations of the Bulgarian split squat will incorporate different muscle groups (for example, holding weights in the front-rack position enlists your shoulders) and ultimately help you get more of the glute gains you’re after.
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