Lunges

Lunges are an effective exercise for shaping and strengthening almost every muscle in the lower body and are valuable for strength or circuit training.

How to Do a Lunge:

  1. Stand in a split stance with your right foot 2 to 3 feet in front of your left. Keep your torso straight, shoulders back, core engaged, and hands on hips.

  2. Bend your knees and lower your body until your back knee is a few inches from the floor, ensuring your front thigh is parallel to the ground.

  3. Push back up, keeping your weight on the heel of the front foot.

Benefits of Lunges

Lunges tone and strengthen the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves while stretching the hip flexors, improving flexibility, and engaging core muscles for stability. They mimic daily movements and can boost your metabolism. Compared to squats, both exercises build lower body strength, but lunges are unilateral, improving stability and addressing muscular imbalances, while squats are bilateral, enhancing overall strength.

Lunge Variations

Assisted Lunge

Use a wall or chair for balance. This allows you to focus on form without worrying about tipping to one side or the other - use this adjustment if you struggle with lunges when you first try them.

Half Lunge

Lower halfway to reduce knee stress. This means only lower down half as far, stopping well before your front knee is at a 90-degree angle used in a as in a standard lunge

Dumbbell Lunge

Hold weights adds intensity. Initially, do this by holding dumbbells during the move. The lunge then follows the same basic steps except that you're holding a weight in each hand. From this first position, the placing of the weights can be altered to make the exercise more challenging.

Barbell Lunge

Use a barbell across your shoulders for heavier resistance. It is important that you are fully comfortable with both standard lunges and also how you balance while performing the movement before attempting this.

Lunge with Twist

Stand up tall with your feet shoulder-width apart. If you're using a medicine ball, hold it directly in front of you with both hands, your arms straight or elbows bent about 90 degrees if straight arms is too difficult initially.

  1. Step forward with your right foot, lowering your body into a basic lunge position.

  2. Twist your upper body to the right from your midsection. Keep your core engaged, squeeze your glutes, and be careful to not rotate your knee.

  3. Bring your arms back to the center in a slow, controlled movement.

  4. Step the right foot back and return to the starting position.

Common Mistakes and Safety

Lunging Too Far Forward

During lunges, if your knee goes past your toe it's easy to put too much stress on the knees. The focus should be on taking the body down as part of the lunge rather than taking it forward.

Externally Rotating the Back Knee

AS lunges force you to balance you may externally rotate the back knee in an attempt to correct any stability issues. Rotating the knee out or in during a lunge can lead to injury, so if you feel pain in the back knee, use a mirror to check your alignment and make sure you're not rotating the knee in or out without being aware of it - the back knee should point to the floor at the bottom of the lunge.

Stance Too Close or Wide

Everyone will have a different stance based on their body and what feels comfortable. Keeping the feet too close together, however puts to much of the stress on the knees, while moving them too far apart can make the position even more unstable. Check the stance by getting into a lunge position and lower all the way down, resting the back knee on the floor. Doing this allows you to see if you have a 90-degree angle in both knees. If you don't, your stance is wrong and needs to be adjusted for length.

Knee Issues

If you have a knee injury or condition, it is entirely possible that lunges should be avoided or modified. (Keep in mind that even modifications may not work for everyone.) If you are being treated by a physio or other medical professional, seek their advice.