The Power of the Lunge

I’ve always thought of the lunge as an underrated exercise. Shadowed by it’s bigger brother, the squat, it never really got the spotlight that it deserved. Let me explain why it’s such a fantastic exercise, and why it should be a staple of your leg workouts.

1. It can literally be performed anywhere – Your living room, the park, the beach, lunge away anywhere you want
   
2. Works a large range of muscles including your Quadriceps, Hamstrings & Glutes – Great for building muscle and strength in the legs/bum, or just overall tone depending on your goal
   
3. Improves hip flexibility – With all of us spending more time sat down, it’s easy to develop tight hip flexors muscles. Lunging is a fantastic way to stretch them out and help increase your range of motion
4. Great for your core stability – Keeping yourself upright as your hips transcend up and down demands a strong core, and improves balance, and coordination
   
5. There’s lots of progressions – There’s tons of different ways to progress the lunge, from the static lunge to a rear foot elevated lunge (Bulgarian Split Squat) and all of them can be loaded in different ways (see my insta for a video on how to progress)

Technique
Take a big step forward and sink down, keeping your front knee in alignment with your toes.
Drop the back knee down as if you’re crushing a fruit on the floor, creating a right angle at both knee’s. 
The heel of the back foot should come off the floor, but keep your toes and ball of the foot in contact.
Keep your upper body vertical and head facing directly forwards.
Push back to the starting position, and repeat with the other leg.

As usual, drop me a message if you have any questions.

James
TheBeardedPT