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Chris Freytag demonstrating a Walking Lunge

A walking lunge is a powerful functional strength training exercise that takes almost any other version of a lunge to the next level. Walking lunges improve your overall strength not only in your legs, but in your core as well. The additional walking motion added to the traditional lunge brings cardiovascular benefits, making the list of benefits to this lower body workout grow.

There are so many reasons to learn how to do walking lunges.

The motion in a walking lunge is the key. Rather than remaining stationary, you are using a push forward from the back leg and pull forward from the front leg.  These push and pull actions will help the glute muscles fire in a very specific way. It is easy in other lunge positions for your quads to take over and do the work while your glutes remain quiet.

One of the reasons for performing a lunge is to tighten and lift your back-side, so doing the walking lunges is a more sure-fire way to make sure you are getting those results.

Most of us spend a lot of time sitting, whether that is at a desk or elsewhere; the sitting motion often tightens up muscles, especially hip flexors, after long periods of time. The walking lunge boosts the flexibility of the hip flexor muscles, which are the muscles that tighten up from sitting. The range of motion in this exercise gives those flexors a nice, deep stretch.  

In addition, the distribution of body weight in this movement improves both the balance and coordination of one’s body, helping improve posture overall.

In addition to strengthening and toning the quads, glutes, hamstrings, and hips, the walking lunge improves your core stability. The up and down motion of the walking lunge strengthens the core muscles as well.

Try this walking lunge anywhere from your home, to the driveway, to the gym to receive all the benefits it does for your body!

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Table of Contents

How To Do A Walking Lunge

  1. Stand tall with your feet hip distance apart. Take a large step forward with the right foot and lower your body toward the floor.  Both legs should be bent at a 90-degree angle at the bottom of the lunge.
  2. Push off left foot (back foot) so the left knee lifts up and you land with left foot in front, same bent knee position. Now push off the right foot, lift the right knee, and land with the right foot in front, same body position.  Continue to “walk” your lunge forward as far as you can go, then turn around and walk back.

What Muscles Do Walking Lunges Work?

A walking lunge is a powerful move that strengthens your quads, glutes, hamstrings and core. For strong, beautiful thighs and glutes you should learn how to do walking lunge!

Benefits of Walking Lunges

There are many reasons you should incorporate walking lunges into your workouts. Here are just a few:

Strengthens Legs

Walking lunges are a great leg move! This exercise will strengthen all of your leg muscles including quads, hamstrings and calves. This is a leg-shaper for sure!

Strengthens Butt

Walking lunges are not for legs alone. If you are looking to shape that booty, you should try walking lunges. Done properly you will feel it directly targeting your rear end. If it’s time to lift and tone the tush, then try walking lunges!

Improves Core Strength and Stability

A walking lunge is definitely a strength move for the butt and legs, but it also targets your hips, core and all stabilizer muscles. It challenges your balance by requiring these stabilizers to activate and work as you move.

How Many Calories Does a Walking Lunge Burn?

People often ask how many calories they are burning in their workouts. Most exercises will generally burn about 100 calories for every 10 minutes you are working at higher intensity. Bottom line – the harder you work, the more calories you burn.

Walking lunge builds muscle in your lower body, which makes for a better metabolism and higher calorie burn all day long.

Other Exercises Similar to Walking Lunges

If you like walking lunges and the results you get from them, here are a few more exercises you might want to try.

Incorporating Walking Lunges Into Your Workouts

A walking lunge is a great exercise to practice any time on its own. However, you could also incorporate it into other workouts to mix them up. Here are some ideas to make that happen.

Use Walking Lunges In A Lower Body Challenge

Love it or hate it, leg day works! Working all your lower body muscles can make for one intense training session. Use this workout as your leg day challenge. You’ll sculpt and shape your legs and rear end.

Leg And Butt Day Workout: Try each exercise below for the number of repetitions listed with just a few seconds in between to rest.

Repeat one more time.

Use Walking Lunges In Your Full Body Strength Workout

Even though leg day is powerful, full body workouts can be a satisfying way to spend your time. Not only do you make the most of your time, but you get your heart rate up as well. Take one workout and get it all done! This next workout gets it all done and includes walking lunges as well as a bunch of other basic strength moves you’ll love.

Full Body Strength Workout: Warm up for about 2-3 minutes then, do between 10-15 of each of the following moves:

Use Walking Lunges In An AMRAP Workout

AMRAP = “As Many Rounds As Possible.” Take 3 exercises, set a timer for 3 minutes and see how many rounds of those 3 exercises you can finish in your 3 minutes!

10-Minute Bodyweight AMRAP Workout: The groups below have 3 exercises listed. Go through the list of 3 as many times as possible for 3 minutes. Take a 30-second break then move to the next group until you’ve done them all.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Here are 3 more workouts that incorporate walking lunges: