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