Friday Fix: The Forward Lunge

A lunge is one of those fundamental movements that you’d think everyone has down PAT, but is often poorly performed. 

One of the common mistakes I see is overstriding. When this happens, the front leg gets out too far in front to control. Sometimes I see this as a really deep lunge like you’d see in a yoga pose, with the torso VERY upright (re: extended through the back); sometimes I see this as getting stuck in the lunge (they have trouble coming back up and push off their toes AND extend through their backs to get back up). 

Yes, I made my fiancé take pictures for me today while we wandered around Nashville. He’s very patient. And we only got a half dozen weird looks. 

Anyways, this is an overextended position. I MOSTLY feel this as a stretch through my down leg and a lot of pressure through my front knee (and I’ve had multiple knee surgeries so trust me when I say it is WILDLY uncomfortable). 

And here is an example of misplacing my weight into my toe, which often happens when people aren’t quite sure where their weight should be in a lunge. I also see this, like I said, when people who have lunged TOO FAR forward try to use their toe to push the ground away and come back up. You can OFTEN see both of these in the same movement. 

And this is what a lunge should look like: 

My spine is in a neutral position, I have my weight distributed on my front foot in a way that I can push through my heel AND big toe, and my back leg is not overly stretched behind me. I can keep my core engaged and my cranky knees LOVE this position (versus the earlier two). 

I often like to start people in split squats to re-pattern (or teach) this movement. In a split squat, I’ll often start people in the half kneeling position, kneeling on the back leg, with a 90 degree angle at each of the knees and at the hips. 

From there, I’ll tell them to pick a spot on the floor ten feet in front of them to focus on, pretend they’re about to be punched in the stomach, and then come STRAIGHT up, as though an invisible string attached to their head was pulling them up. 

That often will clean up the moment by itself. (Sometimes I have to remind people to push through their heel more, or to keep their front toe down if they over-correct). 

Find this helpful? Let me know! And let me know any other things you’d like to see ☺