The Best Exercises You Might Not Be Doing, #5, Lunges
- The Best Exercises You Might Not Be Doing, #5, Lunges
- The Best Exercises You Might Not Be Doing, #4, deadlifts
- The Best Exercises You Might Not Be Doing, #3, push ups
- The Best Exercises You Might Not Be Doing, #2 Abductions and Adductions
I’ve had a few emails from readers lately, who provided me with a breakdown of their workouts. Most of them were relatively standard, but I did notice a few exercises that seemed to be missing. So I decided to write up a quick series of articles on some of the best exercises that most people are missing out on. Number 5 is going to be lunges.
The Basics
The lunge is one of the simplest leg exercises and yet, one of the best. A simple explanation is, place both of your feet together. Now lower your body down until the knee of your back foot almost touches the floor. Here’s a quick video from Cooper’s Guns on the basic dumbbell lunge.
Proper Form
The guy in the Cooper’s video is doing the lunge a bit too fast for my taste. I usually prefer the 3 and 3 rule. That means you should spend 3 seconds slowly going down and 3 seconds slowly coming back up to your starting position. However, his form is good otherwise. His knees are in good position. Notice how, when he’s at his lowest position, both his knees are just about at 90 degrees. That’s a good lunge right there.
Benefits
The lunge works out your entire upper legs area, reaching all the way up to your lower back and waist. It’s one of the most comprehensive legs exercises because it recruit every single leg muscle group you have. It’s also great for practicing stability. It can be done with zero equipment since even a basic body weight (no weights) lunge, is still good exercise.
Warnings
The lunge does place some pressure on the knees. So if you have bad knees, take it easy when you first try out lunges. Talk to your doctor if you’re worried and stop if you experience any pain.
Variations
The dumbbell lunge shown is the basic one, but there are lot of variations.
- Lunge and curl - When your body is at its lowest point, hold that pose and do a slow biceps curl with the weights you’re holding. This will work out your upper body and pushes your legs even harder as you try to maintain your form.
- Walking lunge - Instead of moving the forward back to your starting position, move the back foot up as though you’re taking a step forward. In essence, you’re walking, but each step is interrupted by a lunge.
- Barbell lunge - Use a barbell with some weights on rather than a curl. Allows for some higher weights to be used.
- Bench lunge - Same as a normal lunge except your back foot is on a bench. Not recommended for those, like me, who aren’t very flexible.
- Side lunge - The forward foot moves up but also to the side. It should move to the outside of the back foot. This will put more strain on your outer and inner thigh muscles. However, the few times I’ve done this, I almost fell over. Again, not recommended for the flexibility challenged.
Who’s Missing Out?
For the most part, it seems to be guys who are missing out on the lunge. For some reason, guys seem to think that upper body is where they should focus and ignore their legs.
Summary
The lunge is an easy exercise that can be done anywhere and at anytime. You can even do it at the office or on long plane ride as a way to stretch. Add a few weights and it’s an integral part of any workout.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
back in high school and college we used to live by the deadlift, lung and squat.
Really? My high school coach never did deadlifts. I think he was too afraid we’d hurt ourselves and sure or something. We did do lunges and squats though. Squats is number 3 on my list. That post is coming up next week.
Gal