Okay, I am about to head out and film some more YouTube videos for you. I have about 20 videos that I am going to film. But today, I have a video I did a few weeks back. In this video, I wanted to go through a simple tweak to the lunge that you can do to exercise to challenge and fire up your core. This exercise involves simply changing your hand position.
The lunge is an excellent exercise to strengthen the legs and the glutes. With this tweak, you can work your core simultaneously, making the exercise even more effective and making better use of your time while working out.
CLICK HERE to watch the YouTube video.
Traditional Lunge
I am going to get Alix to demonstrate.
In a traditional dynamic forward lunge, you step forward, drop your knee, and then return to the starting position. This lunge exercise is very leg, knee, and hip dominant, focusing on the lower body.
Traditional Lunge
Arms Overhead Lunge
Change your hand positions if you want to fire up and challenge your core. Bring your straight arms overhead, holding them there while moving into the lunge position. In this position, we have increased the lever of the body (how long the body is), emphasizing the core/abdominal area more.
Arms Overhead Lunge
Double Dumbbells Overhead Lunge
Use dumbbells and move them overhead. In this position, we have increased that lever and challenged that abdominal core area much more. Progress this exercise even more by bringing weights or resistance into it.
Double Dumbbells Overhead Lunge
Single Dumbbell Overhead Lunge
Another way of progressing off this exercise is by taking one of the dumbbells away and just going with a single dumbbell. By doing this, we have offset the weight, and now the body is imbalanced. This challenges the knee stabilizers, the hip stabilizers, and the core a lot more.
Single Dumbbell Overhead Lunge
The traditional lunge works the lower body. The arms overhead lunge challenges the core and fires up the core. This exercise is great for happy and healthy shoulders. The overhead movement is excellent for shoulder health because most people avoid it.
Give that little tweak a go. See how it makes your core and abdominal area feel.
Final Word
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Take care!
Rick Kaselj, MS
If you want to improve the activation, endurance, and strength of your gluteus maximus, click here to check out the Best Gluteus Maximus Exercises program.
