The lunge isn’t a squat per se, but it’s still a knee, or quad, dominant movement, and it’s still an extremely valuable one at that. The lunge is effectively a squat taken from a split stance, or more simply, a sort of single-leg squat.
Because most of your movement occurs either from a split stance or as the result of pushing off just one leg, you want to train the unilateral (one-limb) movements, such as the lunge, just as extensively as you train the bilateral (two-limb) movements, such as the squat.
You can perform the lunge with either a weight held in the goblet position (like you would a goblet squat) or with no weight at all. You may find that holding a weight in front of your chest may assist with balance and posture. Follow these steps to do the goblet lunge:
Assume a hip-width stance and hold the weight in front of your chest. Begin by stepping back deeply with one leg, maintaining the hip-width stance.
Imagine you’re lunging on railroad tracks.
Maintain a fairly square and upright torso throughout the lunge. That means don’t lean forward, twist, or rotate. Also don’t go too narrow with your stance, unless you want to topple over.
Continue to lunge back until the knee of your back leg reaches the ground.
You may rest your knee there, but don’t bang it.
Notice that in the lunge both feet are pointing forward.
To come out of the lunge, push equally off your front leg and back leg and return to the starting position.
Be sure to keep your back toes tucked, not pointed, so you can push off the ball of your back foot when lunging.
