Dépense estimée selon votre poids
Mouvement polyarticulaire · 4 s par répétition
| Répétitions | Dépense estimée |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0,53 kcal |
| 10 | 5,3 kcal |
| 20 | 10,5 kcal |
| 50 | 26,3 kcal |
| 100 | 52,5 kcal |
Estimation à partir des équivalents métaboliques (MET) du Compendium of Physical Activities. La charge, le tempo et la durée des repos font varier le résultat du simple au double : à lire comme un ordre de grandeur, pas comme une mesure.
The lunge, a lower-body strength exercise
The lunge is a unilateral exercise: one leg works in front, the other behind. Standing with your feet under your hips, you step one foot forward, then lower your back knee toward the floor. The lower body takes most of the load — but your core works too, keeping you balanced.
It's a strength exercise you can do with no equipment. Why do lunges show up in almost every leg program? Because they expose strength gaps between your right and left side, something a two-legged movement hides easily.
Which muscles lunges work
Several muscle groups fire at the same time. How the work is shared shifts with your torso angle and the length of your step.
- Quadriceps of the front leg: the main driver when your torso stays upright.
- Glutes and hamstrings: they take over as soon as you lean your torso forward or lengthen the step.
- Adductors and calves: stabilizers on every foot contact.
- Abs and lower back: they lock the trunk in place on the way down.
The back leg isn't just along for the ride. It slows the descent and helps you drive back up, especially on reverse lunges. That shared workload is why the lunge stays such a complete exercise when you're short on time.
Technique: knee, foot and depth
From the starting position, take a step of roughly 70 to 90 cm depending on your height. Lower until your front thigh is parallel to the floor, front knee at 90 degrees. The back knee grazes the floor without slamming into it. Then push through your front heel to come back up.
- Keep your shoulders over your hips and your eyes on a point far ahead.
- The front knee stays in line with the foot, never caving inward.
- A hand on a wall or a chair is enough to steady your balance early on.
In practice, the most common mistake isn't the load: it's too short a step, which dumps the whole working angle onto the front knee.
Lunge variations
Forward and reverse lunges
The forward lunge throws your body forward: it loads the thighs more and demands more control on the braking phase. The reverse lunge steps the leg back, spares the front knee and hits the glutes better. Cranky knees? Start with the reverse version.
Walking lunges and alternating lunges
The walking lunge chains steps together without returning to the start: the cardio cost climbs fast. The alternating lunge switches legs on every rep from the starting position (counting gets a lot easier).
Lateral and Bulgarian lunges
Stepping out to the side, lateral lunges bring the adductors into play. The Bulgarian lunge puts the back foot on a bench: the hardest one for balance, and brutal on the front leg's glute.
| Variation | Main muscle | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Forward lunge | Quadriceps | Moderate |
| Reverse lunge | Glutes | Easy |
| Walking lunges | Thighs, cardio | Moderate |
| Lateral lunge | Adductors | Moderate |
| Bulgarian lunge | Glutes, quadriceps | Hard |
Lunge or squat: which one
The squat handles heavier loads and builds pure strength faster. The lunge isolates one leg at a time, exposes imbalances and needs less equipment. Do you have to pick? No: squat at the start of the session, lunges after, as a follow-up.
Same logic with the Bulgarian split squat, which is nothing more than an elevated lunge. If you can only keep one for your glutes, keep the Bulgarian version.
Picking the right variation, the right load and the right volume takes time. MUSCU builds that choice around your profile, with 1,800 filmed exercises and a guided session on your phone.
Bodyweight, dumbbells and useful volume
With bodyweight, aim for 3 sets of 12 reps per leg. As soon as 15 reps feel easy, pick up dumbbells: the dumbbell lunge, arms hanging at your sides, is the simplest way to progress. Two dumbbells of 8 to 12 kg will last you a long time.
Two sessions a week, 48 hours apart, beat daily lunges. Muscle grows during recovery, never during the rep itself. Work them into a training program you follow over time rather than doing them as a one-off set.
Lunge: the word's other meanings
The word turns up in contexts that have nothing to do with training, and searches get tangled up. In fencing, the lunge is the classic attacking step: back foot planted, front leg extended toward the opponent. In everyday English, a lunge is also any sudden forward movement — a dog lunging at a fence, a goalkeeper lunging for the ball.
Nothing to do with your thighs! The mix-up keeps coming back anyway, especially when people search for the exercise and land on fencing footage instead.