0:02 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, we're going to talk about a lunge, one of 0:06 the last exercises, one of the hardest exercises in our lower body strength or 0:12 resistance training progression. Now it falls so far within our progression because it 0:17 requires a huge amount of stability and coordination as well as optimal extensibility of our 0:21 lower leg and lumbo pelvic hip complex. So, an example of where a lunge would not 0:27 be appropriate: if somebody has anterior pelvic tilt, or they have feet turn 0:32 out a little bit in that overhead squat assessment, you're going to have to 0:36 regress this exercise with either a step up, a squat, or a modified squat, while you 0:41 work on that dysfunction, and then you can progress back to this exercise when 0:45 they can get near optimal mechanics after their warm up. So I'm going to have Laura come 0:51 in and help me demonstrate this exercise. And what we're going to try to do is 0:56 match the lunge with all of the other lower body exercises we do as far as 1:00 sports are concerned, it's really not that much different. So from the anterior view, 1:05 from the front view, we just want to make sure the feet, knees, and hips are in 1:08 a nice straight line, just like we would for a squat or a step up. I'm going to have Laura go ahead and step 1:13 back into this lunge. Good. And she has nice alignment. We see feet, knees, and hips all in a 1:18 straight line. The biggest dysfunction you would probably see is that 1:23 in some people this back leg has a tendency to the veer out a little bit. If 1:28 that happens one of two things is happening: either they're leaning back, or they still have some 1:33 residual tightness in either the rectus femoris, or sometimes their TFL. 1:38 You're going to have to go back and do a 1:41 little bit of foam rolling and stretching, and then try this exercise 1:45 again. Usually if you get somebody's rectus femoris loosened up they're going to 1:49 lunge just fine. Go ahead and turn sideways for me. Now, from the side view, 1:55 we still want a parallel line between tibia torso, and we want to make sure 2:00 that we have a neutral alignment of the pelvis. So I'm going to have Laura go ahead and 2:04 step back with this leg and back into the lunge, and as you can see she does the lunge that so 2:10 many of us have been taught with back straight up and down. The problem with 2:17 that lunge is if you put that back leg back, and then lean back, you're forced to 2:22 to load this back. This back leg is in a stretched position, it's not in any 2:27 sort of position that is going to be able to produce an optimal amount of 2:29 force, and the idea behind the lunge is to try and strengthen that front leg. It's 2:35 like a squat with a kickstand. To demonstrate this and I want to have Laura go down 2:39 into a squat, just go straight down, there we go, and then I want you to shift 2:44 your weight to this leg, good, and move this leg back. One-legged squat with a kickstand. 2:50 All this is doing is stabilizing, we're trying to load this leg. Good and then 2:55 come back up for me. Good. So when she goes back down I still 3:00 want this back leg straight up and down. I get people to think of a merry-go-round 3:04 horse, that have the poles through the center of them. This should go straight 3:07 up and down, but, we noticed that Laura still has this straight up and down back too. What I 3:13 usually do with an individual like this is have them reach. As she goes down I'm going to have her 3:19 reach with the opposite hand of the foot that's forward. Good. We get a little bit 3:25 of a forward bend there. Now we have our hip flexion, her glutes stretched out, so it's 3:30 loaded knowing that I'm going to get her glute to fire on the way back up. 3:33 Go ahead and come back up, perfect. Back down, good. Are you starting to feel it in the front leg? -Oh yeah! 3:41 Usually you start getting people do this, and I understand it's a little excessive of a forward 3:45 lean at this point, but it's teaching her the proper mechanics, so we're going to 3:49 go ahead and start here. Now, with Laura, this this is probably where I would stay. If I were going to 3:53 progress with a strength progression I'd just add some dumbbells, from a stability 3:57 progression I might add an Airex pad, or some other piece of balance of equipment in front of this 4:02 front foot. Once I got her to do proper mechanics, there are a 4:07 couple of ways to progress this saggittal plane static lunge. So go ahead just start standing 4:12 straight up. The first progression we can utilize, you have probably heard of is 4:17 a reverse lunge. So let's go ahead and go down into a reverse lunge, good and back up. 4:23 You can see Laura still has that straight up lunge, so what I want you to do is when 4:27 you're doing that reverse lunge still use the forward touch. Good. Get back up with 4:31 this right glute. Good. Down, tell people to thrust forward with their hips as they 4:37 come back up to get that right glute, and you can see her reverse lunge looks pretty good as long as 4:41 she does this queue. If I wanted to increase the stability I can have her go from 4:45 reverse lunge to balance, and then to balance she's not going to put this leg back 4:51 down. The only place this leg's going to touch is behind. If she really had back down I 4:57 could then put a piece of balance equipment under this right foot. Now, a 5:02 progression for this would be the standard front lunge. The reason a front lunge is 5:08 harder than a back lunge, is in a reverse lunge the foot that is 5:13 decelerating, or slowing her down on the way down is still on the floor. In the front 5:17 lunge she's going to build up momentum that she then has to decelerate with that 5:22 front leg. So go ahead and back up a little bit for me. Alright, let's see your front lunge. 5:28 There's a little bit impact there. Good, take a little further step, I still want you to reach forward. 5:35 You can see that her 5:39 back leg is still going straight up and down. So a reverse lunge would be good for Laura, 5:45 this is probably a little tough. We could then do a front lunge to balance, just 5:49 like we did on the previous exercise. You could then go ahead and add stability 5:54 equipment here. It's pretty rare that I get somebody to be able to do a front lunge to 5:58 balance on a piece of stability equipment, that would be tough. If we wanted to add weight you 6:02 could definitely do that. If it were in a strength training program of course we 6:06 could do walking lunges at a little faster tempo, if we were more in a power training 6:10 program and working towards a little bit more speed. I hope the queues that I just gave 6:14 you help you out. I hope you feel your front leg when doing lunges. I'll 6:19 talk with you soon.
