Hi friends! Today I’m so excited to bring you a guest post from one of my fellow blogger friends. Jess is a ACSM certified personal trainer, yoga teacher, and fellow health and fitness blogger at Hello to Fit. She’s going to walk us through how to rock perfect lunges during a workout.
If someone asked you to name a bunch of leg exercises, would lunges make the list? While it is an “easy” exercise to remember to do, lunges are also easily performed incorrectly.
Performing lunges the correct way has a TON of benefits, including stronger hamstrings, quads, and glutes. Lunges also require balance and control through the core (abs and back must be engaged, good posture is required). Without the proper mechanics, you could be more susceptible to knee, back, and/or hip injury. Yikes!
Why We Need Strong Legs
Leg strength isn’t just about aesthetics. Sure, a strong booty and muscular legs looks good. But once you look past that and focus on the functional aspects of stronger muscles, it’s like woah. THAT’S why I need to be strong.
Stronger legs (and core, and upper body…) help us with basically every aspect of our daily lives:
- Increased endurance to complete chores around the house, yard work, etc.
- Better body mechanics when lifting things, such as our children, baskets of laundry, moving boxes, weights we use at the gym
- Less compensating with other muscles and joints (if our glutes and hamstrings are stronger, we are less inclined to use our spine, knee joints, and over-active quadrieceps muscles)
- More muscle mass, higher fat-burning capability in the body
Proper Lunge Form
When I’m learning a new exercise it can be SUPER helpful to see it done correctly AND incorrectly. Knowing how to NOT do something can be beneficial, especially if you are strength training on your own, without the extra pair of eyes from a friend or personal trainer.
Without further ado, let’s break down the lunge exercise, shall we?
Let’s start from the feet up. Ideally, feet would be separated enough so that you can bend both knees comfortably, without feeling like you’re about to do the SPLITS:
- Back heel should stay lifted while you perform the lunging motion
- Both knees will bend, but the front leg is doing most of the work. Pain in the back knee could be an indicator that your back knee is working too much
- Shift forward onto your front heel, and push the hips back in space – this will allow the glutes to work more than quads and spine
- Front knee should be right above the ankle to minimize knee joint issues
- Something to consider: many people will lunge with the upper body 100% erect, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But try hinging forward a tad so that your body is in more of a slight inclined position. This should allow, again, more of your GLUTES to work (read more from trainer Nick Tuminello here).
- As with any exercise, keep abs tight to support the trunk!
Here’s a different view, so you can check out alignment for the front of the body. You can see that the knee is pointing pretty straight on, and again: both knees bend.
Incorrect Examples of the Lunge
From this side angle, let’s look at two ways that lunges are performed INcorrectly:
In the above photo, you can see that the front knee bends way past the toes. Not necessarily a terrible thing, since our day-to-day movement probably involves bending with knees past our toes. However, it could become an issue because now there is more force through the knee JOINT, rather than the muscles surrounding.
In this second example, things don’t look too bad, right? My back is still straight, I’m leaning slightly forward for more glute and hamstring engagement, but my stance is off. Have the legs too close together could be wonky on the knees and hips.
Remember the front view of a correct lunge? Above is a (very) incorrect version of a lunge. This is one of the most common form issues I see with clients; you can tell that the knee pushes in towards the midline of the body. While a physical therapist would have a much better idea of what’s going on if he or she were to evaluate a knee that pushes in like that, causes could be weakness in the hips and glutes. Engaging them enough would pull the knee back over the ankle.
What Are You Waiting For?
With a better understanding of correct – and incorrect – form for lunges, now you know how to rock perfect lunges.
Lunges, along with any muscle-strengthening exercise, aren’t just great for our body composition. Having more muscle mass helps us perform activities of daily living with more ease and efficiency. Being stronger can help us endure LIFE: our kids, jobs, and workouts. Most importantly, it could help us avoid potential injury from compensating with joints.
Go forth, my friends, and remember to squeeze those glutes!
Jess is an ACSM certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Charlottesville, VA. Through her personal training and blogging, she hopes to share her experiences with living a balanced lifestyle: a lifestyle that includes an emphasis on strength and core training, moving as much as we can for health, while also enjoying those moments of indulgence. Check out www.hellotofit.com for more!

SOOO many mistakes when it comes to lunges and they are a great component to keeping our hips happy so we can run strong! Great tips
You would know about that!! Thanks Amanda 🙂
Great and helpful photos! Thank you! 🙂 Gotta get those nice legs!
You’re welcome Heather! So glad Jess was able to find some time to write this post for me!
This is really helpful! I actually tend to keep my body more upright so I’ll try hinging forward a bit next time. 🙂
I totally do the same. I never ever thought the slight lean would be helpful. I learned a thing or two from Jess too!
I love lunges. I mean, I hate them, but they work – feel the burn! Thanks for the tips!
Ha yes the love/hate seems prevalent with lunges!
Great tips for proper lunges, I’ve always disliked lunges because I always feel like I have to think to hard about them, but I know how valuable they are (especially when done correctly) The pictures are so helpful to those who are unsure of proper form 🙂
Glad this is helpful for you Tee. It’s easy to bust out improper lunges without really focusing on good form, but yes, it is sooooo important!
awesome tips! i hate lunges haha but i know i need to do them.
Love/hate, right? 😉
lunges are my favorite workout! thanks for sharing these tips 🙂
You’re welcome Dixya!
I’m a stickler for good lunge form. I am constantly correcting my clients and students! Thanks for putting this reminder out there!
That’s SO good. Injury prevention is important!
Lunges are my fav! I use a medicine ball and do them all sorts of ways.
Oh I used to do that all the time – good reminder for me to pick up those medicine balls at the gym and get a good challenge!
Lunges are one of my favorite exercises – can’t wait to heal up so I can do them again! It’s so easy to get bad form when not paying attention, too, so this is a good reminder.
Happy healing Alisa – I hope you can get back to it soon! Lunges can be SO hard on the knees if done incorrectly!
Hi Jess!!!! Such good tips and form! You are rocking those lunges! I’m inspired to do some today. 🙂
Julie, do you follow her on Instagram? She does some crazy moves that totally inspire me all the time!
Thanks to Jess for a great guest post! I actually worry about things like lunges when I do them because I KNOW how easy it is for form to go off. Now I have a few things to think about each time I do them!
xxox
Laura @ http://www.cookwineandthinker.com
Jess is amazing. She seriously knows her stuff and her photos are so helpful! Glad you stopped by Laura!
Nice work! I love seeing “form” posts because so many do the basics wrong. Thanks for sharing.
The basic fundamentals are sooooo important!
I love and hate lunges! LOL! Great tips!
I feel the same way about tuck jumps and running! Thanks Laura.
Great tips and love Jess, she always has such perfect form and pose! So many people do them wrong and wonder why their knees hurt. Proper form is always key!
I love lunges but am sure I don’t have perfect form! Thanks for the great tips to work on!
Proper technique is so important. This is a very helpful post! Well done!
Awesome! Those pictures are so helpful. I had no idea that a slight lean forward would help work the glutes more. That’s exactly the area that needs the most help for me!
Such a pleasure to be a guest on your blog, my friend!! xoxo
Great information! The photos were really helpful too for knowing the correct and incorrect form for lunges!
This post is perfect for me right now! I just joined a gym last week and it’s so nice to have a post on how to do lunges properly.
Thanks for sharing this articles. I love all demonstration images, especially those give us examples of incorrect lunge form. Easy-to-follow instruction. Well done!
Thanks so much Michael but all the credit definitely goes to my girl Jess! She’s amazing.