Exercise of the Week: How to not do a crappy lunge.

I'm a form girl. Having good form while you are working out makes ALL. THE. DIFFERENCE. Period. The end. There is no way around it. When people ask me what I think the importance of having a trainer is I would say ensuring proper form and safety and accountability are two of the top reasons...among many other things of course :)

Lunges and Squats are two of the biggest culprits as far as bad form goes. People say they can't do squats and lunges because they hurt their knees, but the truth of the matter usually is they can't do squats and lunges correctly and so they are hurting their knees. If you do them right, they shouldn't hurt. I have clients with double knee replacements who are carefully and correctly doing squats and lunges with no problem at all.

First the lunge with poor form...I could have made this real bad, but I tried to keep it close to what most people do wrong.

- Small stance which causes you to press the knee over the ankle
- Shoulders hunched forward
- back foot pointed outward (hard to see this one) back knee should be facing down at the ground

Now the lunge with good form...

- wide stance allowing you to keep your front knee directly in line with your ankle. You should be able to go straight up and down without that front knee passing your ankle.
- shoulders back, abs and core tight
- both back and front food pointed forward, and back knee pointed down at the ground

I LOVE lunges and squats because with different variations you can work all the muscles of your legs and core. You know I love my multi-tasking workouts and they are chalked full of squats and lunges. The muscles of the legs are also the bigger muscles in your bodies, meaning the more you work them, the more calories you are burning. Win-win-win-win-win if you ask me.


Do you feel like you have good form? It really is amazing the difference having good form can and will have with your workouts. Are there any exercises you are wondering about as far as how the correct form is done?

ALSO...
As you may remember I have been running a boot camp class at Elevate since the beginning of the year. It has been going AWESOME. Our group has had so much fun, and we've seen some amazing results. One fine chick-a-dee has lost almost 40 lbs!! We're taking some new members. It is a smoking deal and it's so dang fun. Here are the details...

Elevate is located at 147 W 400 N in Orem, UT  
The class consists of 3 one hour sessions per week (Tuesday @ 6PM, Thursday @6PM, and Saturday @8AM)
Weekly weigh-ins (This includes body fat and body inch measurements)
Nutrition planning & web-based tracking system to keep you accountable everyday
$150 per month, only $12.50 per session ($25 value)

It is a great way to have the help of a personal trainer at a lower cost. Feel free to email me if you have any questions at megolina21 at gmail.com!