What are Lunges, and Why Are They So Important?

When you meet with a personal trainer for the first time, very often the first exercise they have you perform is a walking lunge.

When you meet with a personal trainer for the first time, very often the first exercise they have you perform is a walking lunge, where you hold weights in each hand, and do a lunge-walk set of about 12 steps, 6 steps per leg:

If you are new to lifting, you may choose to do your first one or two exercise sessions with a walking lunge and no weights. This will at least give your brain the info it needs to learn the lunge form and commit it to muscle memory.

Lunges are an important part of the warm up process, and I would go so far as to suggest them for the beginning of every workout. Every day. Just to make sure you did something with your legs even if it’s not legs day. Lunges cause little soreness over time because they are essentially a weighted stretch. If you’re going too heavy you will be sore and unstable so please make patience your God here.

It is not necessary to break land-speed records increasing the weight you use for walking lunges; this exercise is just for muscles that haven’t been stretched. They are crucial in the beginning stage of your fitness journey, and you can make them easy.

Of course, you can choose to fit lunges anywhere within the workout that you choose: beginning, middle, end. As long as you make sure to get these lunges done you can rest assured you’ve put in a good stretch, but they are best used as a warm up exercise.

The lunge is good for working your quadriceps and hamstrings, making this a compound exercise that works more than one muscle group. This is where you get your ‘bang for your buck’ - this one exercise works the front and back of your leg all at once.

Squats work the front of your legs and a small portion of your rear-leg, despite what is commonly believed about squats.

A balanced approach to training legs, one that accounts for frontal and rear muscle groups, is the best way to prevent injuries in order to ensure you’ll still be operating tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that one too.

It is highly suggested that you do lunges to start off every workout, to minimize soreness.