The
lunge is a great exercise for working the thighs and glutes
but it has one major problem. Every time you step foward
with the dumbells in your hands, all the force of the
weights and your body shifting forward goes right into
your front knee.
It's
not so bad if you're using lighter weights, but it can
affect your knees even then. If you're using heavy weights,
forget about it! The force of each step forward gives
you potentially damaging stress without any additional
benefits over a split squat type of movement.
What
this variation of the Dumbell Lunge does for you is take
the forward shearing force off the knee at the bottom
and keeps it on the thighs and glutes, where it belongs.
Because
instead of stepping forward onto the flat ground, you're
going to plant your front foot on the face of a decline
bench (it appears to be an incline when you're doing the
exercise, which is why I called it that) so that you get
a direct push back instead of an angled push back.
This
difference means the force to the knee is GREATLY reduced.
So
basically, grab a couple of dumbells and stand in front
of a decline bench. Make sure the bench isn't going to
slide forward if you put any pressure on it. Set your
front foot on the face of the bench, about halfway up,
dumbell hanging at your sides.
That's
your start position. Now move forward into the lunge position:
Because
the bench is elevated, you can go nice and deep into the
lunge position (more so than if your front foot was flat
on the ground). This allows you to really get down and
work the glute on that side - the greater the stretch,
the greater the glutes will be involved.
Push
yourself back up to the start position, keeping your front
foot on the bench still - it's better for balance to keep
the front foot on.
Once
you've done your reps on the one leg, switch to the other
leg and do your reps.
When
you do the next set, start with the leg you didn't start
with on the first set. This will help to keep things even
in terms of strength.
One
thing to note, when you're setting yourself up for the
exercise, if you place your left foot on the bench, your
right foot should be about 4 to 6 inches to the right
of the centerline of the bench. Basically, don't set your
right foot directly in line behind the left - you need
to keep some horizontal separation between the two feet
so you don't fall over.
