How to Do Bench Lunges

"ALICE MONSAERT: This exercise is another variation of the lunge. The lunge is your friend. We're going to step to the center of the bench, and I really want you to take that trail leg and step way back as far as you can. Your starting position is up with both legs straight, your back leg, the heel is off the floor. You're going to keep your upper body straight kind of like you're going off a ski jump, shoulders back, weights are at your side, and you lean forward, bending the knee so it comes over the center of the heel and pushing back up. Showing you that from the side, and I call it advanced level lunge cause it's hard to do and it really--you will feel this the next day, not only in your glutes, but you'll feel it in your inner thighs as well. So our foot is at the center of the bench, shoulders back. In a typical lunge, we go straight down; in this advanced level lunge, you scoot your back leg back as far as you can and lean forward. If you can see, I've got a straight line from my head to the heel--or I should have a straight line from my head to my heel. The way that you can change the intensity of this is to slow the movement down, both on the descent and the ascent, or change the variation and the tempo or go down quickly and come up slowly, but you're really going to start to feel the overload in the glutes, in the inner thighs, in that advanced level lunge."