Hi, it’s Rob from New Leaf Physiotherapy in beautiful Kelowna British Columbia Canada. Today I’m going to go over the proper lunging technique. The most common mistake I see with people lunging is they keep their back leg straight, which then forces their front knee way over their toes. Normally knees going over the toes is not necessarily an issue unless you’re having knee pain and this can really flare up the knee pain.
I’m first going to discuss what bad technique is and then I’ll demonstrate a good technique.
A bad technique is going into a lunge and keeping the back leg straight or barely bending and then really going forward, driving the front knee way past your toes. That can put a lot of extra pressure on the back of the knee cap which can aggravate knee pain. Image source
Good technique is to going into a nice easy stride, bending that back leg almost as much, if not more than the front knee. Watch the video below to see me demonstrate. The back leg almost drives the exercise, so as I bend the back knee I fall into the lunge.
When you’re pushing yourself up there’s two ways you can do it. You can push off the back leg to bring yourself up, stepping forward. Or you can push off the front leg and stay in that lunge stance or step backwards.
The difference is that when you’re coming up and you are pushing with your front leg, try pushing with your heel, you will activate more of the glutes on the front leg. If you push off the back leg to come up to standing, you are going to use little bit more of the quads, thigh muscles and calf.
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