Walking Lunges: How-To, Variations, Benefits, Precaution & More

This is some text inside of a div block.

December 31, 2021

min read

This is some text inside of a div block.

views

Home

/

What Is A Walking Lunge?

Walking lunge is a great exercise that can strengthen your core, improve your balance, and work on almost all the major muscle groups of your lower body. As you can guess by the name, the exercise is somewhat similar to traditional stationary lunges.
Generally, walking lunge is considered a strength training exercise because it strengthens the muscles of your core and lower body. However, some people also include it in their circuit training because the exercise also raises your heart rate.

Walking Lunges Benefits

Many people chose this exercise instead of stationary lunges because of the various walking lunges benefits. If you learn the proper walking lunges form and practice it regularly, you are going to get the following benefits:

All-In-One Workout Exercise: Walking lunges can target so many muscle groups that you can add it to just any type of workout at home. Be it a warm-up or strength training routine, you can modify the exercises according to your needs and get the desired benefits. A few modifications of this exercise are overhead walking lunges, barbell walking lunges, etc.
Helps You Reduce Weight: Include walking lunge in your HIIT training and this will act as a weight loss exercise. Increase the number of reps, reduce the time period of rest, you will see the results of regular walking lunges or DB walking lunges with a high number of burned calories.
Increases Your Functional Capabilities: Walking lunges workout can hit on various groups of muscle, mimic various activities of your daily routine, and hence can increase your functional capabilities. If you think that you can not balance your body while doing the daily chores or you don’t have enough strength for picking things like other people, you should include regular walking lunges form or dumbbell walking lunge in your workout.

A ‘non-health’ benefit of this exercise is that it does not require much space or special equipment. You might need a set of dumbbells or barbells while doing walking lunges with weights, otherwise, you do not need any other special equipment for the exercise.

How To Do Walking Lunges: A Step-by-step Guide

An empty room is more than enough to do a walking lunge. The bigger the room, the farther you can go doing walking lunges without taking a turn. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do walking lunge:

Standing straight with your feet at a hip-wide distance to each other.
While doing the exercise, keep your torso upright, chin lifted, and core engaged.
Take a step with your right foot wide enough that your left heel gets lifted.
Place your hands on your hips while doing the exercise.
Now, inhale, bend both knees and stop right before your left knee is about to touch the ground.
Breathe out, press your right heel against the ground, straighten your right knee and lift the left foot from the ground.
Now, put your left foot in front of the right one and the distance should be wide enough that the right heel gets lifted from the ground.
This march is called the walking lunges. If you think that you are losing the balance of your body, you can pause at every step.
At the final step, place your back foot adjacent to the right foot.

Variations of Walking Lunges

If you don’t want to miss the benefit of walking lunges but are bored of repeating the same exercise, you can try the following variations:

Overhead Walking Lunges (Also Called Walking Lunges With Weights)

Start the exercise with bent knees and feet at a shoulder-wide distance to each other.
Breathe in and raise the weight above your head, right between your shoulders and above the head.
Breathe out, place one step forward and take the lunge position.
Breathe in and ensure that your forward knee is right above the forward foot, not in front of it.
Breathe out, put pressure on the ground, against your forward heel.
Breathe in, and return to the position where you started.

Dumbbell Walking Lunge (Also Called Db Walking Lunges)

Stand straight on the ground with your shoulders back.
Keep the torso upright and hold dumbbells in each hand.
While doing the exercise, you have to keep your arms by your sides, totally relaxed.
Take one step forward with your right leg, putting pressure into the ground with your heel.
Now, bend the right knee and take the lunge position.
Repeat the same movement with the left leg and take the lunge position.
If you think that you are losing the balance of your body, you can pause at every step.

Barbell Walking Lunges

Stand straight with your feet at a shoulder-wide distance to each other and the barbell positioned across your traps.
Take the right step forward while bending both the left and the right knee simultaneously.
Lower down your body until your back knee touches the ground.
Put pressure on the ground against your right heel and extend the left knee to stand up.
Return to the position where you started and repeat the lunge taking the left step forward.

Precautions And Safety tips

You need to take more precautions while doing walking lunges workout than a static lunges workout. Here is a list of a few tips that will help you do the exercise the safest way:

If you are a total beginner, you can start with a static lunge to master the correct form.
Do not lean forward; try to keep your body straight during the whole exercise.
Engage your muscles while taking forward steps.
If you take a too long step, you might arch your back.

Conclusion

From every benefit of walking lunges to its how-to-do guide, now you have read everything to get started with the exercise. If you think that you need to strengthen your core muscles or the muscles of your lower body, you should definitely add walking lunges into your workout.

Top Search Terms For Yoga