Lateral Bound
The lateral bound has you standing on one leg, then pushing off explosively to jump sideways, landing on the opposite leg and holding that landing still before you bound back the other way. It trains your adductors to decelerate and redirect force in a single-leg, side-to-side pattern that a forward jump or a straight-ahead sprint never touches. The stick-and-hold at the end of each landing isn't optional flourish, it's the part that actually builds control.
Why it works
Most lower-body training happens in a straight line: squats, lunges, and forward jumps all load and move through the same front-to-back plane. The lateral bound asks your adductors, working alongside your abductors, glutes, quads, calves, and hamstrings, to absorb a landing force coming from the side instead, a movement quality that barely gets trained any other way. Holding the landing for a beat forces your stabilizers to actually control the impact rather than just survive it, which is what makes this drill carry over to cutting, changing direction, and any sport where you plant a foot sideways.
Set up
- Stand on one leg with a slight bend in your hips and knee, arms relaxed at your sides.
- Pick a realistic sideways distance to start with, closer than you think you can jump.
- Fix your eyes on where you intend to land.
How to do it
- Push off the standing leg explosively, driving sideways through your hip.
- Swing your arms in the direction of the jump to add momentum.
- Land on the opposite leg, bending your hip and knee to absorb the impact.
- Hold the landing completely still for a full second before your next move.
- Push off that leg to bound back the other way, repeating the stick and hold.
Form cues
- Land on the opposite leg every time, not the one you jumped from.
- Knee tracks over your toes on landing, never caving inward.
- Stick the landing dead still before moving again.
- Arms swing with the jump instead of staying stiff.
Breathing: Exhale as you push off into the jump, inhale as you stabilize the landing.
Common mistakes
Letting the landing knee collapse inward toward the other leg.
Fix: Slow the drill down and focus on landing with your knee stacked over your foot, even if that means jumping a shorter distance.
Bouncing straight into the next jump instead of holding the landing still.
Fix: Count a full second of stillness on each landing before you push off again; the hold is where the control gets built.
Jumping for maximum distance before the landing is controlled.
Fix: Shrink the distance until you can stick every landing cleanly, then build distance back up gradually.
Landing flat-footed with stiff knees.
Fix: Bend your hip and knee on contact to absorb the force through your leg instead of your joints.
How to program it
- Two or three sets of 5 to 8 bounds per side is plenty, since the quality of the landing matters far more here than total volume.
- This drill fits best early in a session, right after your warm-up, while your legs are fresh enough to land with real control.
- Once landings look clean and controlled, add distance before adding reps; more uncontrolled jumps just rehearses a bad landing.
- It pairs naturally with lateral cone hops or the lateral box jump as part of the same change-of-direction block.
Safety notes
- Practice on a surface with good grip and enough space on both sides; a slippery floor turns a controlled landing into an uncontrolled one fast.
- If your knee caves in on landing more than occasionally, shorten the jump distance until that stops happening, since that pattern is exactly what side-to-side training is meant to correct, not reinforce.
Exercise profile
- Force
- Push
- Mechanics
- Compound
- Category
- plyometrics
Frequently asked questions
What muscles does the lateral bound work?
Your adductors do the primary work of pushing off and absorbing the sideways landing, with your abductors, glutes, quads, calves, and hamstrings all contributing to the jump and the stick.
How far should I jump in a lateral bound?
Start shorter than feels impressive. The goal is a controlled, still landing on one leg, and distance should only grow once you can stick that landing every time.
What's an easier version of the lateral bound?
The single-leg lateral hop uses a smaller, lower-intensity hop to build the same side-to-side landing pattern before you add real jumping distance.
Why does my knee cave in when I land?
That usually means the jump distance is outpacing your control. Shrink the distance and focus on keeping your knee stacked over your foot on every landing.