The single-leg builder everyone needs more of.
Keep your front knee tracking over your toes and your chest up the whole time.
The lunge splits your stance and makes the front leg do the lifting, quads controlling the knee as you drop and driving you back up, with the glutes powering the hip. Training one leg at a time exposes imbalances a squat lets you hide, and demands balance and hip stability on every rep. It is the foundational single-leg pattern, everything from split squats to sprint mechanics builds on it.
No, that old rule is dead. Your knee travelling forward is normal, what matters is that it tracks in line with your toes and the movement is controlled. If your knees are sensitive, a slightly longer step shifts more work to the hips.
Reverse lunges are usually easier on the knees and simpler to balance, forward lunges add a braking demand as you catch your bodyweight. Start with whichever feels smooth, both build the same base.
First add range, back knee lightly kissing the floor every rep. Then slow the descent to three seconds, add a pause at the bottom, or push the reps up. When those are easy, holding load is the natural next step.
