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Hands down—or legs down in this case—lunges are the best leg exercise around. A basic stationary lunge strengthens every leg muscle and targets the glutes like no other exercise can. If you want lean, strong legs, our 28-Day Lunge-A-Palooza Challenge is the perfect opportunity for you to get them.
If you want to improve your running or biking, this is the challenge for you. If you don’t want a droopy behind—yup, this is your prevention. Even if you’re just looking for a way to burn a bunch of calories in a short amount of time, this is for you!
Complaints about performing lunges are not in short supply. Part of the issue is obvious—they’re hard! They use the largest muscles in your body, so your heart rate goes up while your legs are burning. Not a comfortable situation. The other complaint usually has to do with sore or achy knees. Often, this stems from poor form.
Poor form wreaks havoc on your knees and when your knees hurt, lunges don’t feel good. To avoid these unnecessary aches and pains, review our article on How To A Proper Lunge and take a peek at the picture below. Your front knee should track over the top of your foot, and you should keep your chest lifted, your chin up, and your core engaged.
How To Do The Challenge
Each day for 28 days, you will do five different lunge variations. Review the lunges listed below to learn the proper form and technique! The 28-Day Lunge-A-Palooza Challenge chart that you can print off tells you how many reps to do of all five lunge types each day. The reps and number of sets will vary from day to day, slowly increasing until day 28 when you will perform 100 lunges for beginners or 200 lunges for advanced! You will not only have a great sense of accomplishment, but amazing, strong, and lean legs to show for it!
PS: If your knees do get sore during the challenge, do a few fewer reps, skip a day in between and listen to your body. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that 3 reps would be 3 lunges so right, left, right. But if you are type A 🙂 and feel lop-sided (LOL) then do 4. The next day starts on the left foot if you’d like…there aren’t any “lunge police” so it’s all the honor system. Have fun!
Alternating Forward Lunges
Alternating Backward Lunges
Alternating Lateral (Side) Lunges
Alternating Cross-Behind Lunges
Walking Lunges
Get the printable calendar by clicking below!
More 28-Day Fitness Challenges
Love a 28-day challenge? Try one of these next!- 28-Day Push-Up Challenge
- Reboot Your Body 28-Day Challenge
- Belly Fat Blast Challenge
- Shake Up Your Wake-Up 28-Day Challenge
Will definitely want to do it
Count me in for this 28 day challenge!!
I cannot wait to strengthen and make my legs lean. I love a challenge!! I am excited to workout with everyone too!
Thanks Chris…printed off the lunge challenge…we’ll see how I do!
Thanks for posting this – I’m looking forward to the challenge. Can you clarify – when you say “six reps of each”, is it six reps total or six reps per leg?
Six reps per leg!
Chris, are all the reps going to be 6 throughout the 28 days??
My husband and I are both going to do this challenge!!! Yay! Come on lean legs!!!
Day 1 done! It’s all about the lift, no droop! Sing to Megan Trainor’s “All About ThatBass! Let’s get our booty back! Lol. Added in 6 swats too, for good measure!
I did the push up challenge and I can’t wait to do this. Can you create one for Abs too? Thanks for being our at home trainer!
Looks fabulous. I’m definitely going to print it out and start after I finish my current challenge. Ten years ago I was doing freestyle fitness and was up to 1000 lunges a day. (4-5 sets of five different lunges 25 reps each leg.) I’ve never been as fit in my life! No need for additional cardio when you’re doing lunges! I went from a size 10 to a size 4! I’m now 60 and after menopause and a lot of weight gain I am working on getting fit again.
Thank Chris for another challenge. I did mine this morning with my personal trainer, just to make sure that I have the correct form. Love this work out.