Lunges - Time to tone those legs!

The lunge exercise is one of the best exercises that you can do for your thighs and glutes. It’s a great exercise that can be performed anywhere. The lunge can be a difficult exercise to master. However if you get the technique right, it’s an effective exercise that can be performed with or without exercise equipment. Lunges target multiple muscle groups at once, that is, it is a compound exercise. Also, being a functional exercise, a lunge improves your everyday activities in many ways.

Benefits of lunges:

• Lunges improve whole-body control.
• Lunges strengthen your buttocks and legs. Strengthening these large muscle groups can speed up your metabolism, which is beneficial if you're trying to lose weight.
• Lunges can improve your core strength. When doing lunges, you must engage your core muscles, including your back and abdominals, to keep your body upright and balanced as you move your hips up and down.

How to perform a basic lunge correctly?

1. Stand with your feet together, keep your head up and your shoulders back, place your hands on your hips and as you are facing forward choose a place to keep your eyes focused on as your perform the exercise.
2. Take a big lunge forward with your first leg and your forward leg should be bent at about a 90 degree angle.
3. Your thigh should be parallel with the ground and your back knee should be nearly touching the ground, your back leg should also be bent at a 90 degree angle.
4. Keep your body as controlled and still as possible.
5. Use your front leg to push yourself back up, push off with your front heel until you’re standing straight up with your feet together.
6. Repeat with your other leg.

To make it more of a strength move, try lunges with bicep curls and shoulder press!

1. Get focused and stand up tall with a pair of dumbbells at your side. Keep your core tight and your upper body should be upright for the duration of this entire complex movement.
2. Lunge forward as usual putting your heel down first and making sure your upper body is in the center of gravity.
3. Perform a biceps curl when your body is completely stable at the bottom of the lunge.
4. After you perform your curl keep the dumbbells at shoulder level in a high-hang position.
5. Lunge back up to a balance and perform a shoulder press.
6. Try to keep your balance and let the weights come all the way down to your sides at the original position and repeat.