# Reverse Lunge: how to do it

- Main muscles: quads, glutes
- Also works: hamstrings
- Equipment: bodyweight
- Level: beginner
- 3D demo (side view): https://media.trainaq.com/exercises/reverse_lunge/4b4d6f9b85/side-m-720.mp4

## Steps

1. Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart, hands on hips.
2. Step one leg back and land on the ball of your foot.
3. Lower until your back knee nearly touches the floor.
4. Push through your front foot to bring the back leg in.
5. Repeat on the other leg.

## Cues

- Keep your weight on the front foot.
- Sit your hips down and slightly back.
- Front knee stays over your toes.

## Common mistakes

- Leaning onto the back leg.
- Stepping back too short, so the front knee shoots forward.
- Letting the hips twist as you step.

## Starting position

Stand tall, feet hip-width apart (foot centre lines 15–20 cm apart), toes straight ahead, hands on the hips. Shoulders down and back, trunk braced, gaze ahead. Most of the weight sits on the right foot, which stays planted for the whole rep. Leg length (L) below means front of the hip bone (ASIS) to the inner ankle: about 0.86 m on the 1.75 m avatar.

## The movement

Step the left leg straight back, keeping the hip-width gap, and place the ball of the left foot on the floor, heel up. Then sit the hips down and slightly back: both knees bend together until the right thigh is level with the floor and the left knee hovers just above it, pointing down. The right foot stays flat and the right knee tracks over the 2nd–3rd toes. The trunk tips forward a little from the hips with a flat back. To return, press the right foot into the floor, straighten the right hip and knee and swing the left foot forward to land beside it.

## End position

Bottom: front knee about 90°, front shin close to vertical, rear knee 2–5 cm off the floor. Because the front foot never moves and the hips travel back, the shin stays a little more upright than in the forward lunge. ExRx keeps the trunk upright [1]; ACE's "push back into the hip" with the chest raised [2] reads as a slight lean, so the target is 10°.

## Tempo

1 s step back and lower, 0.5 s more to the bottom, 0.2 s pause, 1.3 s drive up and bring the foot forward, 0.5 s stand. The app tells users to alternate legs or switch sides.

## Form in numbers

| Measure | Target | Good range | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Step length, front heel to rear heel | 0.9 × L ≈ 0.78 m | 0.7–1.0 × L (0.6–0.86 m) | [1] [4] |
| Front knee flexion at the bottom | 90° | 80–105° | [3] [4] |
| Rear knee flexion at the bottom | 90° | 80–100° | [1] [4] |

## Sources

1. [ExRx, Rear Lunge](https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/BWRearLunge)
2. [ACE, Reverse Lunge](https://acefitness.org/resources/everyone/exercise-library/319/reverse-lunge)
3. [Comfort et al. 2015, J Athl Train, "Joint kinetics and kinematics during common lower limb rehabilitation exercises"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26418958/)
4. Form-standards section 7 (walking lunge; Stastny et al. 2015 and Gao et al. 2022)

Source: https://trainaq.com/exercises/reverse-lunge