maratoolDumbbell Rear Lunge
How to do the dumbbell rear lunge
- Stand with your torso upright holding two dumbbells in your hands by your sides. This will be your starting position.
- Step backward with your right leg around two feet or so from the left foot and lower your upper body down, while keeping the torso upright and maintaining balance. Inhale as you go down. Tip: As in the other exercises, do not allow your knee to go forward beyond your toes as you come down, as this will put undue stress on the knee joint. Make sure that you keep your front shin perpendicular to the ground. Keep the torso upright during the lunge; flexible hip flexors are important. A long lunge emphasizes the Gluteus Maximus; a short lunge emphasizes Quadriceps.
- Push up and go back to the starting position as you exhale. Tip: Use the ball of your feet to push in order to accentuate the quadriceps. To focus on the glutes, press with your heels.
- Now repeat with the opposite leg.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the glutes finish hip extension; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down.
Every exercise for:QuadricepsCalvesGlutesHamstrings
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Elevated Back Lungebarbell
- Elliptical Trainermachine
- Fast Skippingbody only
- Front Squats With Two Kettlebellskettlebell
- Hip Adductioncable
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 62 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.