What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
So you're in the gym, you're doing your leg workout, getting ready to do your lunges,
and guess what?
You get that sharp digging knee pain and you decide what?
That you're going to quit the workout.
You're going to skip the exercise entirely?
Or, are you going to try to bear through it and feel even worse in the morning?
Well, neither one of those is a good choice because
the fact of the matter is, the longer you continue to do those movements that are causing
you pain right now, the more long-term damage you're going to do.
So to continue to bang away at forward lunges if they're causing you pain is not the right
answer.
But what I can tell you is, lunges may still be the answer.
You see, I'm going to show you here the big difference between reverse lunges and forward
lunges as it relates to the knee pain that you might be feeling when doing the exercise,
and how doing a reverse lunge can actually help to eliminate all the problems that you're
having in the first place.
So, let me demonstrate here.
You can see, as I step out into a regular forward lunge, the first thing I want you
to notice is what?
That that front leg is in an open chain position.
So, the stepping leg, the one that's about ready to do all the work is open chain to
start the exercise,
meaning the foot is not in contact with the ground.
This causes a problem because we're preparing it to absorb a lot of force and shock the
moment the foot hits the ground.
And it's doing that in an already semi-compromised position for guys that have knee pain because
you can see that as I demonstrate here on the skeleton,
when the knee is already paritally flexed here, you've got a stretch going on in the
quadriceps, an eccentric load going on in the quadriceps that directs the force through
the tendon that it's attached to, the quads are attached to the patellar tendon, and the
quadricep tendon and patellar tendon that cross here and put compressive force on the
patella itself.
So, we know that with this already in a stretched, eccentrically loaded position when the foot
makes contact with the ground, you get those forces that get directed right up into this
already stinging patellar tendon and it feels like a knife digging right into your knee.
That's not a good situation.
So, why is the reverse lunge that much better?
Well, let's take a look.
You can see when I get ready to do the reverse lunge first of all that front leg starts and
stays at a closed chain position.
So, the foot stays in contact with the ground the moment we start the exercise and until
we complete our very last rep.
So, number 1, the stability of the front
leg
and the stability fo the knee is enhanced.