Cant Do a Lunge? Heres what Your Bodys Trying to Tell You

You Might: Need to Widen Your Stance

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If you're a newbie, hold onto a dowel stick, broom, wall, or chair for added stability while performing the lunge, Branford says. Once youre ready to let go, practice doing the lunge with just your body weight before gradually adding weight with dumbbells or kettlebells.

And instead of lunging as though youre walking a tightrope, with one foot directly in front of the other, pretend youre stepping along either side of a train track. A wider stance will provide you with greater stability through the knee and ankle and help with balance, Branford says.

It may sound counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do to improve your balance during lunges is to relax.

When your body stiffens up, your brain has trouble hearing what the muscles are saying, Goyke says. Relaxing allows us to access our proprioception, or sense of where we are in space, to deal with the balance challenge lunges present us.

You Might: Have Weak Glutes

Knee pain is fairly common in forward lunges either in the knee of the front or back leg. If you feel pain in the front knee, there's likely an alignment issue. When you bend or straighten your knee, your kneecap glides gently up and down through a groove in your thigh bone.

The most common reason the kneecap falls out of alignment is a lack of glute strength, Radermacher says. Weak glutes often cause the hip and knee joints to shift too far inward, which adds stress to the kneecap and creates pain.

However, if your discomfort in the back knee, it often means you're putting too much weight on that leg, Goyke says. Shift more of your body weight onto the working leg and see if that solves your problem.

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Radermacher suggests sticking with reverse lunges, as this variation provides all the benefits of forward lunges while emphasizing the glutes more.

Also, consider adding banded glute bridges to your workouts to help target your glutes, he says. Once you build more glute strength, give forward lunges another try.

If youre still experiencing discomfort or pain in either knee after testing these fixes, try shortening your range of motion (dont bring your knee to the floor) and/or performing the exercise more slowly. If neither of these modifications work, hit pause while you consult a physical therapist.

You Might: Lack Strength or Mobility

Getting your front thigh parallel to the floor (or close to it) and then pushing up to stand requires plenty of strength, mobility, stability and movement awareness. If you struggle to achieve a full range of motion during lunges, it may mean that one or more of these skills aren't up to snuff. And that's OK! It takes time to be able to perform lunges at full range of motion.

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Instead of trying to force yourself into a full range of motion and risking pain or injury in the process take it slowly. Guyett recommends gradually increasing your range of motion each week so your muscles and tissues can adapt to the new demands. But never go so deep that you feel discomfort or pain.

Adding mobility exercises into your routine may help, too. While there are many to choose from, one of Goykes favorite exercises to start with is one he calls the rockback with abs. Do this exercise as part of your strength warm-up, prioritizing days when lunges are on the schedule.

Youll know your issue has more to do with muscle weakness if you feel like youre going to collapse at the bottom or if you struggle to push up to standing. In either case, hold onto a chair, wall, countertop or other object for support. As you get stronger, loosen your grip or remove your hands at different points during the movement until youre able to lunge without assistance.

If you have plenty of strength, mobility and stability to do lunges but still struggle to get to the bottom, you may need to tweak your form.

People will often bend over at the bottom of the movement to use their lower back instead of their hamstrings, Goyke says. Doing this will limit how far youre able to go. Instead, focus on staying tall from the top of your head to your tailbone throughout the movement.

Lastly, try different variations of lunges as you work up to full depth. Lateral lunges will work your glutes more, reverse lunges can help you focus on driving through your heels and walking lunges are a fun, dynamic exercise, Guyett says.

Read more on: livestrong, lunges