Lunges are considered among the most effective lower-body exercises. The exercise enhances your performance by building and prepping your muscles for sports. Lunges strengthen your glutes and quadriceps, besides strengthening your knee joints and helping with stabilization and balance. Whether you want to tone your lower body, strengthen your joints or improve your athleticism, lunges are the perfect exercise.
Forward Lunges
Stand up straight with your legs spread hip-width apart. Rest your hands on the hips and flex stomach muscles inwards and upwards. You can also perform the exercise holding dumbbells in both hands. Now, take a step forward (2 feet stride) and lift the heel of the foot in the initial position in such a way that the toe is in contact with the floor. Bend and hold both knees at the same time for 2 to 5 seconds. Stand and get back to the initial position and finally push off your right heel to rise and repeat with the left leg.
Walking Lunges
Stand up straight with your legs hip-width apart like in forward lunges. Lunge forward with your right foot, bend at the knees and pause at the bottom for 3-5 seconds. Now push off with the other (left) foot, propelling yourself forward as you lift the left leg into a lunge. Stay in the motion with left-foot lunge. Do 10 lunges in the motion, rest for 2 minutes and repeat the 10-lunge set.
Side Lunges
To perform side lunges, stand with your feet hip-width apart. Turn your feet out slightly with your heels closer than your toes, back straight and your stomach flexed for the entire duration of the exercise. Step out to the right, bring your right knee down ensuring that the knee never goes past your toes. Keep your toes slightly turned out; it should follow the line of your second toe. Pause at the bottom of the lunge for 3 seconds. Now push off your right heel and return to the original position.
Advanced Lunges
As the name suggests, advanced lunges are more challenging than the other form of lunges. The exercise involves you holding barbells at your sides. Hold the barbell at your chest to increase the intensity and do 2 sets of 10 repetitions of this exercise each side.
There are innumerable ways, exercises, and activities to be athletic other than lunges. We all want to be athletic but don’t have all the time in the world to invest in activities to improve athleticism. But, you can any day start with lunges.
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