Lunges help build your the booty, sculpt powerful legs, and create better overall balance. But if you tweak the move a bit or add some equipment to the mix, you'll see even bigger rewards. Here are a number of lunge variations to get you started — your arms, tush, thighs, and legs are going to love you!
— Additional reporting by Susi May Source: POPSUGAR Studios
Reverse lunges are already challenging, but if you step back even further, deepening your stance, you'll really feel it in your lower body.
This sideways lunge will target your outer tush as well as your inner thighs.
Adding arm work to this glute- and inner thigh-toner makes this a time-saving full-body move.
Holding a lunge tones the leg, while the scarecrow motion works small muscles that support the shoulder joint, which are known collectively as the rotator cuff.
This is a great move for warming up the entire body. It's a dynamic stretch for both the hip flexors and the hamstrings.
This exercise works the legs and glutes, but as you slide your leg back to center, your inner thigh does all the work. You need one of those discs like the Valslide, but if you don't have one, just use the lid of a plastic container and do this move on a carpet. Or wear socks and try it on a wood floor.
The side lunge works the muscle on the side of the pelvis as well as the inner thighs, while the curtsy move tones your tush.
Great for shaping the legs and butt, jumping lunges can sometimes be intense on the knees. Hopping your feet together before switching sides decreases the impact on the knees.
This full-body toner gets the heart rate going, too!
Adding a little push-up to a basic runner's lunge deepens the stretch for your hip flexors, the muscles on the front of the hip joint, while moving in and out of a plank warms up your core.
Get your legs fired up while testing your balance with this move.
Moving laterally is great way to work the glutes on the side of your pelvis (known as the gluteus medius) as well as the inner thighs. These muscle groups help stabilize the pelvis and should be considered part of the core.
This lunge variation works your arms and challenges your balance and core strength.
This lunge variation will tone up your lower body and arms, but that twist will make your core work, too.