The Lunge is a quintessential exercise. You can do them anywhere and everywhere. A major bonus is lunges get results in no time; they build strong, toned legs. The exercise translates into the real-world too by building lower-body strength, improving knee stability and even fixing fundamental movement and posture problems.

While it’s smart to start incorporating lunges into your routine, you want to make sure you’re not doing more harm than good. Improper form can put unwanted strain on your joints. Find out the proper way to perform a lunge with the above video and directions below.

The Basic Lunge Variation

  • Keep your upper body straight with your shoulders back and relaxed and chin up (pick a point to stare at in front of you so you don’t keep looking down).
  • Engage your core.
  • Step forward with one leg, lowering your hips until both knees are bent at about a 90-degree angle. Make sure your front knee is directly above your ankle, not pushed out too far, and make sure your other knee doesn’t touch the floor.
  • Keep the weight in your heels as you push back up to the starting position.

Injury prevention: If you find lunges place too much strain on your knees, try taking smaller steps as you lunge. Reducing the range of motion will still develop good strength and alignment but will allow your body to easier distribute your weight. Slowly increase your lunge distance as your pain gets better.

Challenge your muscles

Now that you have the basics down, you can modify your lunge workouts in many different ways in order to work different muscles. For example,  reverse lunges (stepping back instead of forward) as a good way to complement the forward movements in your daily life. You move in a forward state all throughout the day so moving in a reverse direction requires more skill. Therefore helping you regain some balance and athleticism. Below is a break down of the benefits of three common Lunge variations. These will help you determine how each might fit into your training program.

Lunge Variations

1. Forward Lunge

The Forward Lunge teaches you to decelerate and control your body as you lower into the move. The motion mimics the action of when when you slow down to make a sudden turn in your day-to-day routine. It’s also a great quad developer, particularly building VMO (the inside part of your quadriceps muscles). It’s a great exercise for runners because developing these muscles translates into speed.

Common Mistakes and Fixes

Mistake 1: Your front knee drifts too far forward beyond your toes, which may cause knee pain.
Fix: Take a bigger step forward, so your knee does not pass your toes. A vertical shin is not necessary, although the exercise is commonly coached this way.
Mistake 2: Allowing your front knee to drift inward, which reinforces poor mechanics—one of the primary causes of ACL injuries.
Fix: Keep your knee in line with your hip and ankle. If this is difficult, try strengthening your abductors.
Mistake 3: Blasting off your front leg, leading with your toes.
Fix: Keep your ankle dorsiflexed (i.e., foot flexed toward shin) and drive through your heel.

Walking Forward Lunge

This is a variation of the Forward Lunge in which you continue walking forward instead of driving back off your front leg. It is best used for conditioning and mobility rather than as a muscle and strength builder. This is a great option to include in your warm-up.

Common Mistakes and Fixes

Mistake 1: Your front knee drifts too far forward beyond your toes, which may cause knee pain.
Fix: Take a bigger step forward, so your knee does not pass your toes. A vertical shin is not necessary, although the exercise is commonly coached this way.
Mistake 2: Allowing your front knee to drift inward, which reinforces poor mechanics—one of the primary causes of ACL injuries.
Fix: Keep your knee in line with your hip and ankle. If this is difficult, try strengthening your abductors.
Mistake 3: Disengaging your abs and allowing your back to arch, which can cause back problems.
Fix: Keep your abs tight and torso upright. You want to keep your chest up, but you should never lean back.

3. Reverse Lunge

The Reverse Lunge is the best option if you want to use heavy weight, especially for those new o weight training. You are able to control your knee, and it doesn’t require as much ankle mobility. It’s also easier to drive off the heel of your front leg, similar to a Deadlift or Squat, so you can perform the move explosively. There’s also less of a deceleration component. If you can perform this variation with weight proficiently, there’s a good chance you’ll have good technique on the Forward Lunge.

Common Mistakes and Fixes

Mistake 1: Your front knee drifts too far forward beyond your toes, which may cause knee pain.
Fix: Take a bigger step backward, so your knee does not pass your toes. A vertical shin is not necessary, although the exercise is commonly coached this way.
Mistake 2: Allowing your front knee to drift inward, which reinforces poor mechanics—one of the primary causes of ACL injuries.
Fix: Keep your knee in line with your hip and ankle. If this is difficult, try strengthening your abductors.
Mistake 3: Pushing off your back leg to stand up.
Fix: Drive through your front heel. Your back leg should come along for the ride.

Want to add intensity?

Weight Options

You can perform the above three variations above with several different pieces of equipment. Here are three options:

With dumbbells at your sides: This is a good option for anyone with bad posture, because it pulls you out of that position. However, if you already have a posture where your shoulders are down and back, then the dumbbells may pull your back into extension, creating potential back problems.

Using a goblet hold: Holding a dumbbell or kettlebell against your chest engages the front side of your core and keeps your back neutral. This makes it the easiest method for maintaining perfect form. The main drawback is you can’t load it up very heavy. If you can do Goblet Lunges with a 100-pound dumbbell, you’re probably pretty strong, but you won’t be able to do much more.

With a barbell: The barbell allows you to use heavy loads, which is this option’s main advantage. But, it’s much harder to control. Often you need to compromise your position to simply hold the bar. If someone has lousy rotation in their shoulders, form becomes an issue.