Lower Body Cross Training Exercises - How to do a side lunge lower body exercise

Hi , I'm Dr. Garrett Smith for Expert Village. This exercise that we're going to go over now is called side lunges. One of the great things about lunges is that they can be pretty much done in any direction you want. The major ones being front, rear, and side. Important things on side lunges is the feet stay straight ahead. We don't want to be turning our feet out to step out. The point is to keep them straight ahead when we're going to do one. The other thing is that in all of our exercises is that the knee stays over the toes of the lead leg. The lead leg is going to be the one I'm going to step with, in this it's going to be the right. Here's what one looks like. I'm going to go out and stay in the bottom position. The knee stays out over the feet, feet are relatively straight ahead, back leg is straight, and then we push back up to the middle position. I'm going to show you that one, because I was demonstrating something there, I bent my back a little bit, I want to show you one really correct. Feet steps out, back straight up and down. I don't want you going down where your back bends like this. I want you to keep a nice neutral spine, and then step back. You can alternate sides or you can do all on one side like I'm doing now. Same things as any other lunge, it's just we're stepping in a different direction, using our arms for balance. Tougher to add weights to this one. Can be done. Barbell across the back. Dumbbells don't really work too well because our legs get in the way. Other thing, for those of you interested in it, side lunges work the adductor's, the inner thigh muscles, a lot. They're great at strengthening those inner thigh muscles. If you're interested in strengthening those, they can be a great addition to your regiment. That's side lunges.