I can almost guarantee you will never see me asking a client to do a round of walking lunges or strict lunges. You will, however, almost always see me working through some variation of dynamic lunges with a client.
It's likely that you will see me do "strange" things with step ups, squats, any lunge-like pattern and anything gait training exercise when I'm working out. Things like exagerrating the movement, or pausing at the top/bottom of the exercise, incorporating bands or challenging my contralateral coordination in what would otherwise be a standard, isolated exercise.
So, why all the funny business and the "anti-lunge" mindset?
1. It's the way we are meant to move.
Some may refer to our 'primal movement patterns' when they talk about how our bodies are designed to move, and how we have been required to perform throughout our evolution as a species. I certainly don't disagree with them, but I often prefer to call it 'functional movement.' This means that the exercises are no longer intended to prepare us for our caveman-like escape from a sabertooth tiger, but rather to optimize our bodies function, longevity and day-to-day performance. If you think about it, lunge-like movements serve a basic purpose: taking a big step over something that's in our way or moving quickly in a forward/backward/diagonal/other direction in response to something we have encountered. (In modern terms, think about climbing stairs...stepping over your dog in the living room...or lunging back to the sidewalk when you see a car speeding through a cross-walk) If we wish to be strong, stable and perform well in these situations...shouldn't we train in the same way we would like to move when we encounter such obstacles?
2. I hope to save you from a knee injury.
When we skip the dynamic part of dynamic lunges, we are left with the often abused forward or walking lunge. We will also lose the activation of our glutes & hip flexors, reduce our ability to improve our coordination and we will give the stabilizing muscles of our core a chance to hit snooze. Without the help of all these muscle groups, you will likely find yourself leaning forward, putting a heavy load on your quadriceps and overloading your knees without accompanying support from additional muscle groups or faciliation from other joints. So when someone says "I can't do lunges, they hurt my knees," perhaps they have simply been fooled into practicing the wrong version of those lunges. Countless times, I've heard that line (with no evidence of past or current injury) and I've cued the client through a dynamic lunge---magically, no more knee pain. Overtime, they un-do the compensation patterns that were created by improper lunges. They also improve strength and stability that translates to other exercises, along with their daily lives.
3. Body control should always be achieved before additional resistance is added.
By adding pauses, putting power behind certain segments of a movement, following our functional (or primal) movement patterns and mastering those patterns with your bodyweight first, you are making sure you have complete body control before adding additional weights. If you skip the steps of mastering your movement with your own body weight first, your muscular and skeletal systems will do whatever they have to in order to adapt when a heavier load is added. This could mean your core isn't ready to stabilize against so much weight, so your back attempts to work harder in an effort to absorb the load---hello herniated discs. Or perhaps you haven't mastered balanced contralateral coordination, so your right knee does everything it can to take on the weight that the left knee can't support--sounds like a knee injury is brewing. Additionally, if you choose to isolate and grow a specific muscle without proper cross-training, your chances of overstressing your joints or straining a nearby, weaker muscle are much higher. By incorporating dynamic and functional variations of standard exercises--such as lunges, step ups, squats, pushups, pull-ups, deadlifts, running and rotation--you will achieve body control in a much more efficient way.
4. Working through the full range of a movement often translates better to the demands of your daily life.
Imagine yourself completing 3 sets of standard forward lunges from a stationary position, with dumbbells in both hands. Now, think about anything in your daily life that mimics that repetitive movement. If you're scratching your head trying to find something that matches up, you're not alone. It's pretty rare when we are moving about the world to find a situation when we will just step forward holding equal amounts of weight in each hand, and then step back to the same place we started from. Throughout our days, we might use different pieces of a lunge (or step-up or squat or push-up or....) from all different starting and ending points, with no weight or heavy weight or only holding weight on one side. When you practice moving and controlling through the full range of that movement with your bodyweight, you will feel much better equipped to translate it to your life outside of your workouts.
5. The variations are endless.
Our 7 basic movements include push, pull, squat, lunge, hip-hinge (bend to extend), rotation and gait. If we do the same thing all the time for these movements, it's going to feel pretty boring. It will also lead to training plateaus and prevent us from effectively training in functional movement patterns. By implementing dynamic and functional varations, the options are endless. You can change any regular old exercise into something unexpectedly challenging--just by adding a 2 second pause at the top or adjusting the plane of movement slightly, or incorporating a bit of band resistance, or making the smallest of tweaks to another exercise variable. This keeps you challenged, engaged and encourages continous progression.
See, there is a method to my madness (also known as funny business)--let's get to work on mastering our functional movement patterns! Even if you're used to lifting heavy, take a day to try just primal-based, bodyweight movements and let me know how it goes. You might expect it to be easy, but I anticipate you will be quite surprised with the different type of challenge your systems will feel.
Wishing you better movement, less pain, easier daily living and enhanced performance gains!
-Coach Cassie
It's likely that you will see me do "strange" things with step ups, squats, any lunge-like pattern and anything gait training exercise when I'm working out. Things like exagerrating the movement, or pausing at the top/bottom of the exercise, incorporating bands or challenging my contralateral coordination in what would otherwise be a standard, isolated exercise.
So, why all the funny business and the "anti-lunge" mindset?
1. It's the way we are meant to move.
Some may refer to our 'primal movement patterns' when they talk about how our bodies are designed to move, and how we have been required to perform throughout our evolution as a species. I certainly don't disagree with them, but I often prefer to call it 'functional movement.' This means that the exercises are no longer intended to prepare us for our caveman-like escape from a sabertooth tiger, but rather to optimize our bodies function, longevity and day-to-day performance. If you think about it, lunge-like movements serve a basic purpose: taking a big step over something that's in our way or moving quickly in a forward/backward/diagonal/other direction in response to something we have encountered. (In modern terms, think about climbing stairs...stepping over your dog in the living room...or lunging back to the sidewalk when you see a car speeding through a cross-walk) If we wish to be strong, stable and perform well in these situations...shouldn't we train in the same way we would like to move when we encounter such obstacles?
2. I hope to save you from a knee injury.
When we skip the dynamic part of dynamic lunges, we are left with the often abused forward or walking lunge. We will also lose the activation of our glutes & hip flexors, reduce our ability to improve our coordination and we will give the stabilizing muscles of our core a chance to hit snooze. Without the help of all these muscle groups, you will likely find yourself leaning forward, putting a heavy load on your quadriceps and overloading your knees without accompanying support from additional muscle groups or faciliation from other joints. So when someone says "I can't do lunges, they hurt my knees," perhaps they have simply been fooled into practicing the wrong version of those lunges. Countless times, I've heard that line (with no evidence of past or current injury) and I've cued the client through a dynamic lunge---magically, no more knee pain. Overtime, they un-do the compensation patterns that were created by improper lunges. They also improve strength and stability that translates to other exercises, along with their daily lives.
3. Body control should always be achieved before additional resistance is added.
By adding pauses, putting power behind certain segments of a movement, following our functional (or primal) movement patterns and mastering those patterns with your bodyweight first, you are making sure you have complete body control before adding additional weights. If you skip the steps of mastering your movement with your own body weight first, your muscular and skeletal systems will do whatever they have to in order to adapt when a heavier load is added. This could mean your core isn't ready to stabilize against so much weight, so your back attempts to work harder in an effort to absorb the load---hello herniated discs. Or perhaps you haven't mastered balanced contralateral coordination, so your right knee does everything it can to take on the weight that the left knee can't support--sounds like a knee injury is brewing. Additionally, if you choose to isolate and grow a specific muscle without proper cross-training, your chances of overstressing your joints or straining a nearby, weaker muscle are much higher. By incorporating dynamic and functional variations of standard exercises--such as lunges, step ups, squats, pushups, pull-ups, deadlifts, running and rotation--you will achieve body control in a much more efficient way.
4. Working through the full range of a movement often translates better to the demands of your daily life.
Imagine yourself completing 3 sets of standard forward lunges from a stationary position, with dumbbells in both hands. Now, think about anything in your daily life that mimics that repetitive movement. If you're scratching your head trying to find something that matches up, you're not alone. It's pretty rare when we are moving about the world to find a situation when we will just step forward holding equal amounts of weight in each hand, and then step back to the same place we started from. Throughout our days, we might use different pieces of a lunge (or step-up or squat or push-up or....) from all different starting and ending points, with no weight or heavy weight or only holding weight on one side. When you practice moving and controlling through the full range of that movement with your bodyweight, you will feel much better equipped to translate it to your life outside of your workouts.
5. The variations are endless.
Our 7 basic movements include push, pull, squat, lunge, hip-hinge (bend to extend), rotation and gait. If we do the same thing all the time for these movements, it's going to feel pretty boring. It will also lead to training plateaus and prevent us from effectively training in functional movement patterns. By implementing dynamic and functional varations, the options are endless. You can change any regular old exercise into something unexpectedly challenging--just by adding a 2 second pause at the top or adjusting the plane of movement slightly, or incorporating a bit of band resistance, or making the smallest of tweaks to another exercise variable. This keeps you challenged, engaged and encourages continous progression.
See, there is a method to my madness (also known as funny business)--let's get to work on mastering our functional movement patterns! Even if you're used to lifting heavy, take a day to try just primal-based, bodyweight movements and let me know how it goes. You might expect it to be easy, but I anticipate you will be quite surprised with the different type of challenge your systems will feel.
Wishing you better movement, less pain, easier daily living and enhanced performance gains!
-Coach Cassie
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