Walking lunge can be a great exercise to strengthen your core and balance. It also works on nearly all major muscle groups in your lower body. The exercise is similar to traditional stationary lunges, as you can see from the name. Walking lunge can be considered strength training because it strengthens your lower body and core muscles. Some people include it in their circuit training, however, as the exercise can also increase your heart rate.
Walking Lunges Benefits
Because of the many benefits of walking lunges, this exercise is preferred over stationary lunges. These are the benefits of practicing the correct walking lunges form.
- All in One Workout Exercise:Walking Lunges can be added to any home workout. You can adapt the exercises to suit your needs, and you will see the results. You can modify this exercise by doing overhead walking lunges or barbell walking lunges.
- Helps you Lose Weight: Add walking lunge to your HIIT training, and this will be a weight-loss exercise. Regular walking lunges and DB walking lunges will show results with a lot of calories burned.
- Enhances Your Functional Capabilities. Walking lunges can target various muscle groups and mimic different activities in your daily life. This can help increase your functional abilities. You should consider including regular walking lunges, dumbbell walking lunges and other exercises to balance your body during daily chores.
This exercise has a ‘non-healthy’ advantage in that it doesn’t require much space. While you might need to do walking lunges with weights while using dumbbells or barsbells, other than that, there is no need for any special equipment.
How To Do Walking Lunges: A Step-by-step Guide
A room that is empty can be used to perform a walking lunge. You can walk farther if you have enough room. This is a step by step guide to how to walk lunge.
- Stand straight and keep your feet together at a distance of about a meter.
- Keep your core engaged and your chin up while doing the exercise.
- Step with your right foot so that your left heel is lifted.
- While doing the exercise, place your hands on your hips.
- Inhale and bend your knees. Stop just before your left knee touches the ground.
- Breathe in, press your right foot against the ground, and then straighten your right leg. Lift your left foot off the ground by lifting your left foot.
- Now, place your left foot in front the right. The distance should be sufficient to allow the right heel to lift off the ground.
- This is known as the walking lunges. You can stop at any step if you feel you are losing your balance.
- Place your right foot next to your left foot at the last step.
Variations on Walking Lunges
These variations are for those who don’t want the benefits of walking lunges, but get bored with the same exercise.
Overhead Lunges (also called Walking Lunges with Weights).
- Begin the exercise by bending your knees and keeping your feet shoulder-wide apart from each other.
- Breathe in, and lift the weight up above your head.
- Take a deep breath, then take a step forward. Next, lunge.
- Breathe in, and make sure your forward knee is above your forward foot.
- Breathe in, and apply pressure to the ground against your forefoot.
- Breathe in and then return to where you were.
Dumbbell Walking Lunge (Also Called Db Walking Lunges)
- Place your hands on the ground and extend your shoulders.
- Hold dumbbells in each of your hands and keep your torso straight.
- You must keep your arms straight up while doing this exercise.
- Move one step forward using your right leg and press your heel into the ground with you heel.
- Now bend your right knee and lunge.
- Continue the movement with your left leg, and then lunge.
- You can stop at any step if you feel that your body is losing its balance.
Barbell Walking Lunges
- Keep your feet straight and your barbell between your traps at a shoulder-wide distance.
- While taking the right step forward, bend both your left and right knees simultaneously.
- Keep your back straight until your knees touch the ground.
- To stand, press down on your right heel.
- Reverse the direction you were in and continue the lunge, taking the left side step forward.
Safety Tips and Precautions
Walking lunges are safer than static lunges. Here are some tips to help you perform the exercise safely.
- You can begin with a static lunge if you’re a complete beginner to learn the proper form.
- Avoid leaning forward. Keep your body straight throughout the exercise.
- Move forward with your muscles.
- You might end up bending your back if you take too long steps.
Conclusion
You have now read every benefit of walking lunges and the how-to guide. Walking lunges are a great way to strengthen your core muscles and lower body muscles.