When you think of lower-body moves, squats are probably the first that jump to mind. Forward lunges are probably next, but what about reverse lunges? This move is a great lower-body strengthener, but for some reason, it doesn’t seem to inspire as much love as its forward-facing cousin.
After all, we’re conditioned to think forward: If someone tells you to take a step, chances are pretty good that you’re going to move your foot in front of you, rather than to the side or behind you. So exercises like the forward lunge tend to take precedence in our minds—and in our training routines.
“If someone lunges at you, they’re going forward, not backward,” says Noam Tamir, C.S.C.S., founder of TS Fitness in New York City. “Just that word lunge makes people think they need to go forward.”
And that’s not necessarily true. While forward lunges are a great exercise to build single-leg strength, if you focus only on them and forget about reverse lunges, you might not be building as balanced a training program as you can be.
Interested in giving reverse lunges a shot on your next leg day? Here’s what you need to know about this lower-body exercise.
What are reverse lunges?
First of all, it might help to back up a little: What exactly are lunges in the first place?
A lunge is a knee-dominant exercise, meaning that the initial movement is taking place at your knee by bending it, says Tamir. It’s a unilateral exercise (performed on one side), and it’s more dynamic than a split squat—where both feet stay stationary—since one leg will be moving.
With a reverse lunge, you’ll be stepping backward with one of your legs, says Tamir. You bend your back leg so your back knee will nearly touch the ground, and your front knee so your thigh is about parallel to the ground. Your front, planted leg is the one that will be working.
“When your front leg bends, you want to make sure your shin is vertical to your ankle,” says Tamir. Keep your weight on the heel of your front foot, and make sure that your front foot stays planted throughout the exercise—your heel should not lift up. (For more detailed instruction, check out the GIF below.)
What muscles do reverse lunges and forward lunges work?
Both forward and backward lunges are great strengthening exercises: They work the major muscle groups in your lower half, including your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves, Kellen Scantlebury, D.P.T., C.S.C.S., founder of Fit Club NY, tells SELF.
With forward lunges, though, you tend to get more quad work than glute work, says Tamir. That’s because it’s easier to push through your heel with a reverse lunge (more on that later), which fires up the muscles in your posterior chain, or the back of your body. So when you do reverse lunges, you tend to work your glutes a little more than with forward ones.
What is the difference between reverse lunges and forward lunges?
Both forward lunges and reverse lunges are great single-leg strengthening moves, which makes them a helpful tool for identifying and correcting any muscle imbalances that you may have between your right and left side, Johnny Tea, C.S.C.S., founder of JT Strength Therapy, tells SELF.
Over time, these types of imbalances can lead to chronic pain and injury, since certain muscles can overcompensate and work harder than they should to make up for an imbalance in another connected muscle. This increases the risk of injury in those muscles that work overtime, which is why it’s important to do single-leg moves to identify and correct those discrepancies.
But there are some important differences between the two types of lunges. For one, a reverse lunge is generally more beginner-friendly, since it requires a whole lot less stability than a forward lunge, says Tamir.
“A reverse lunge has less momentum going forward,” he says. “We make sure that people master the reverse lunge first before they even do front lunges.”
That’s because with forward lunges, the leg stepping forward is the main driver of force—you need the glute, hamstring, quad, and other muscles in your forward leg to decelerate you and then push you back to starting position, says Scantlebury. With a reverse lunge, the stationary leg is the main driver of force, which makes it easier to control.
Which brings us to another difference: Because there’s more stability with a reverse lunge, it’s easier to load up, meaning you can probably go heavier with reverse lunges than forward lunges, says Tamir.
Reverse lunges also tend to put you in a better, safer lunging position, he says. With a reverse lunge, it’s easier to cue you to push through your heel, which helps fire up your posterior chain, or the muscles in the back of your body. When you lunge forward, some people tend to put the pressure on the ball of the foot or the toe, he says. This can put extra pressure on the knee joint, says Scantlebury—which means reverse lunges may be the better choice for someone with knee issues.
In fact, the torque (force of rotation) at the knee joint is significantly greater in the forward lunge versus the reverse lunge, Doug Perkins, D.P.T., C.S.C.S, of North Boulder Physical Therapy in Colorado, tells SELF. That means a forward lunge can place more stress on the knee than a reverse lunge, and the deeper you sink into a forward lunge, the more pressure you potentially place on this area.
If you have knee issues, you can decrease the depth of your forward lunge to reduce the compression load on the knee—or you “might wish to limit or avoid this type of movement,” he says. In fact, if someone is rehabbing from an injury, such as an ACL injury, they’ll generally start with a reverse lunge before progressing to a forward lunge, Perkins says.
What are some reverse lunge variations?
As with any exercise, it’s a good idea to get the form down with just your bodyweight first before you start adding any external resistance—and reverse lunges are no exception, says Tamir.
Once you are ready to add weight, there are a bunch of different ways you can do so. You can do reverse lunges with dumbbells or kettlebells, holding them at your sides or in a racked position. If you have access to a barbell, you can also do reverse lunges this way, but you’ll want to make sure you mastered all the other variations first.
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If you don’t have a ton of weight at your disposal—hello, at-home workouts—but want to work harder, you can use one dumbbell or kettlebell for an offset reverse lunge, Tamir says. You would hold the weight on the side of the leg that is moving backward, so you’ll be loading up the side that’s not doing the work.
“This requires more stability and more core work,” says Tamir.
Another option is a deficit reverse lunge, which you can do with or without extra weight. Stand with your planted foot on a sturdy step, and then lunge backward with your other leg.
“This increases your range of motion, so you can really go deeper in the glutes, and the stability is also more challenging too,” he says.
One quick note: When you’re doing these exercises, it’s important to recognize the difference between muscle soreness (which is good) and pain (which is bad), says Scantlebury. Soreness will register as an overall muscle ache; pain will register as a sharp, pinching, stabbing, or otherwise shooting sensation, he explains. If you feel pain anywhere, but most particularly in or around your knee, stop lunging and check in with your doctor or physical therapist.
How to do a reverse lunge:
Demoing the move is Crystal Williams, a group fitness instructor and trainer in New York City.
- Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart and engage your core.
- Step backward with your right foot, landing on the ball of your right foot and keeping your right heel off the ground.
- Bend both knees to 90 degrees as you sink into a lunge. Focus on keeping your core engaged and your hips tucked (don’t stick your butt out). Sometimes it can be helpful to place your hands on your hips so you can make sure your hips aren’t tilting to the side or forward and back.
- Push through the heel of your left foot to return to your starting position. You can do all of your reps in a row, or you can alternate sides (as pictured).
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