How to do lunges: forward, reverse, walking and with dumbbells

A lunge is a step and a single-leg squat in one: you step out, lower until both knees are bent, and drive back up through the front foot. It needs nothing but floor space, it trains one leg at a time, and that's why it turns up in most leg days.

This page covers the rep, the forward, reverse and walking versions, what lunges train, how step length and lean change the work, lunges with dumbbells, and how to progress from bodyweight. The same rep with the back foot up on a bench is the Bulgarian split squat; why one leg at a time is worth training is on unilateral exercises.

How to do a lunge, step by step

1. Stand tall, feet about hip-width apart, hands on your hips or a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Take a long step forward, far enough that your front shin stays close to vertical at the bottom. Keep your feet hip-width apart side to side, like train tracks, not on one line.
3. Lower straight down until both knees are bent about 90 degrees, the back knee just above the floor and the front heel down.
4. Push through the whole front foot to stand back up, and step back to the start.
5. Finish all the reps on one leg, or alternate legs, and give the other side the same number.

The front knee travels in line with your toes, not inward. Your weight stays mostly on the front foot: the back leg balances and helps a little, but the front leg does the standing.

Forward, reverse and walking lunges

One study compared three of these. In 12 trained young women holding 30% of their body weight, glute activity was higher in the step-forward and walking lunges than in the static one, while activity in one hamstring, the biceps femoris, and one front-thigh muscle, the rectus femoris, didn't differ.¹ No study in a PubMed search for this page compared the reverse and forward lunge with each other for muscle activity in healthy lifters. The reverse lunge is the usual first moving version because the front foot stays planted.

What lunges train

The front leg's glutes and thighs, with the hamstrings helping:

• A hip exercise as much as a thigh one. In 16 recreationally active college-aged adults, eight men and eight women, the knee moved the most in the lunge, but the hip did the most work; the authors call it a hip-extensor-dominant exercise. Adding weight, up to half of body mass, raised the work more at the hip and the ankle than at the knee.²
• More thigh activity than a squat. In 19 recreationally active men, the quadriceps and hamstrings were more active in the lunge than in the squat.³
• The inner front thigh. In 30 healthy adults (19 men and 11 women), the lunge was one of only two exercises in its study above 45% of a maximal contraction in the vastus medialis, the inner muscle of the front thigh.⁴
• High glute activity. A 2020 review of 16 studies listed the traditional and the in-line lunge among the exercises with very high glute activity.⁵

Activity during a set isn't growth over weeks, and no training trial of the lunge on its own turned up in a PubMed search for this page. The case for lunges as a muscle builder rests on the trials of one-leg training in general, which unilateral exercises covers.

Step length and lean

• A forward lean for more glutes. In 10 healthy adults, five men and five women, a forward lunge with the trunk leaned forward raised glute and hamstring activity compared with an upright trunk; leaning back didn't change muscle activity.⁶ In the 12-woman study above, the inclined trunk also raised activity in the muscles along the spine.¹
• A longer step makes the way up harder. In 15 healthy adults aged 30 to 64 doing slow, controlled walking lunges, a step 40% longer than their normal one bent the front knee further and raised thigh and glute activity on the way up, but not on the way down. The authors' reading: a normal step length appears sufficient for this exercise.⁷

So take a step long enough that your front heel stays down and your shin is close to vertical, and lean slightly, chest over the front thigh, when the glutes are the goal. Stay more upright for more of the front of the thigh, as on the Bulgarian split squat.

Lunges with dumbbells and other weights

• Dumbbells at your sides are the standard. In 14 men new to lifting, the pressure under the feet shifted around less with dumbbells than with a barbell or a weighted vest, and the authors suggest dumbbells for beginners for stability.⁸
• A goblet hold, one dumbbell at the chest, when you only have one weight.
• A barbell on the upper back once your balance is solid; the same authors suggest it for the more experienced.⁸

Which tool matters less than loading the lunge at all. In the 19-man study above, every loaded lunge produced more muscle activity than the unloaded one, and the loading device, barbell, dumbbells or a weighted vest, didn't change activity in the lunge.³

Lunges at home: the progression from bodyweight

1. Split squat holding a wall or a chair, until the bottom position feels steady.
2. Split squat, hands free.
3. Reverse lunge, bodyweight.
4. Forward or walking lunge, bodyweight, where you have the room.
5. Any of them with dumbbells, or a backpack with a few books in it.
6. Back foot up on the couch: the Bulgarian split squat.

Move on when you can do 12 good reps a leg with a couple to spare (how to judge reps left). Two or three sets of 8 to 12 a leg is a good dose; the American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand advises at least two sets per exercise.⁹ On a leg day, lunges go in the single-leg slot after the squat and the hinge, and the glute workout starts with reverse lunges when there are no weights. With a sturdy box, step-ups do the same one-leg job.

Common mistakes

• A short step. If your front heel lifts at the bottom, step further.
• Front knee caving in. Keep it travelling in line with your toes.
• Feet on a tightrope. Keep them hip-width apart side to side for balance.
• Pushing off the back foot. The front leg does the standing; the back leg follows.
• Dropping into the bottom. Lower under control so the back knee never bangs the floor.
• Leaning far forward from the waist. A slight lean from the hips, chest up, not a fold.
• Lunging through something that hurts. Tired legs are the point; a sharp or lasting hurt isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A lunge takes a few sets to learn; deciding which version fits your week, and how it sits beside your squats and the rest of your leg work, is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching for beginners explains how the first weeks work, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: do three sets of 10 reverse lunges a leg, and add dumbbells when 12 come easy.