How to do Rear Lunges

Difficulty: Medium

Impact Level: Normal

Target Body Parts: calves, glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps

Instructions

Start standing up with your feet at hip width, and your hands on your hips so that you can feel that they stay level as you step back and forth. Also, before you start make sure you have enough clear level floor space behind you to be able to take a big step backwards.

Take a long step backwards with your left foot. Plant your back toes on the floor at hip width and as your toes makes contact with the floor, bend at both knees to lower yourself down into the lunge position. At the bottom of your lunge, your knees should both be bent to approximately 90 degrees.

From the bottom position, push up using your front leg and step your back foot forwards, landing it next to your front foot at hip width.

Repeat this whole step back, knee bend and step up process with the other leg. Make sure you complete an even number of repetitions on each leg during the time for the exercise.

Try to keep some sideways width between your feet when lunging rather than lunging on one line as if you were on a tight rope. This will make you more balanced. Aim to keep an upright spine during the movement.

How to make Rear Lunges easier

Our Chair Squat and regular Squats exercises are a good way to build up leg strength using a more simple movement pattern, so be sure to feel confident with these before starting out with Rear Lunges.