If you have "bad knees", you may be looking for exercises to strengthen your legs that won't aggravate your knee pain. Lunges are a great quadriceps and glute strengthening exercise, but many people wonder:
"Are Lunges Bad For Your Knees?"
The answer to that question is that lunges can worsen your knee pain if you use improper technique. However with proper technique, and possibly a few modifications, you can do lunges safely at just about any age.
Watch the video below to learn how to do lunges if you have bad knees.
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Why Doing Lunges Is Good For Knees
Lunges can help improve your leg strength, balance, and flexibility.
However, a lot of middle-aged and older adults avoid doing lunges because:
- They're hard.
- They're afraid of losing their balance.
- They're afraid it'll cause or worsen knee pain.
However with attention to your technique, you can get the strength, balance, and flexibility benefits of doing lunges without aggravating your knee pain.
There are several different variations of the lunge, and each has it's benefits and drawbacks. In this post, I'll cover four of those different variations.
I wouldn't recommend that you do them all, but find the one or two that seem to work best for you.
How To Do Lunges With Bad Knees (4 Variations)
1. Best Lunge For Bad Knees: Split Squat
If you're new to doing lunges or if you have bad knees, the most basic version of a lunge is called the split squat.
I'll spend the most time on this one covering the basic principles of the lunge. Then with the rest of the variations, I'll just narrow in on the nuances of those particular versions.
The split squat (a.k.a. split lunge) is performed stationary, where you start in a split stance as the name indicates.
This is the easiest variation of the lunge because you have both legs on the ground at all times and you also only have to focus on going up and down.
There's no forward or backward component to it. That makes it easier on your knees if you have knee pain or knee arthritis.
How To Do The Split Squat (Split Lunge)
To do the split squat, stagger your legs, one leg forward and one leg backward.
You want your feet about shoulder's width or slightly wider apart.
The wider apart you make your base of support sideways, the more stable you are and the less challenging it is for your balance.
If you're just starting out, I would recommend holding on to a chair or even two chairs for balance. This way you can get used to the motion of the lunge without worrying too much about tipping side to side.
If you're concerned a little bit more with your balance, then staggering your feet a little wider side-to-side may help.
Next, we want to find the side-to-side alignment of your knee.
Ideally, you want your hip, knee, and ankle to be in the same alignment.
Depending on how widely you place your feet, that may affect how much you have to turn your knee to find the optimal angle.
From a side view, the narrower your stagger, that's going to place more emphasis on your quadriceps. If you're wider, that's going to place more stress and emphasis on your glutes.
If you have bad knees, I would recommend starting out with a wider stance front to back as well because that's going to place more emphasis on your glutes and cause less compression on your knee cap.
Once you find your starting position, progress down into a lunge.
If you're new to the lunge or have bad knees, you may start out with just a mini-lunge.
Then as you get better balance, strength, and confidence in the exercise, you can progress deeper and deeper.
Again, hold on to a chair for balance if you're just starting out.
A few fine points on technique with the split lunge:
When you're in a wide stagger, you'll have your knee right above your heel.
When you get to the lowest part of the split squat, this is the hardest part because gravity is pressing directly perpendicular to your thigh.
This is similar to the position of getting up from the floor.
In fact, this exercise will help make you better at getting up from the floor if you happen to intentionally or accidentally find yourself down there (such as after a fall).
Go down as far into the lunge as you can without knee pain.
Then push through your heel to come back up.
When you're in the lowest part of the lunge, the hip extension force from your glutes pushes perpendicular to the ground through your heel.
The higher up you get, the more knee extension force you need to come back up to a standing position.
We're not going to worry about coming all the way back up to standing for the split squat.
Just go down, come back up as far as you can without having to go forward or backward.
This means you'll have to do all the repetitions on one leg first, and then switch.
If you happen to have one leg that's stronger or more painful than the other, start with that leg first.
Do as many repetitions as you can with your weak or painful side. Then do that same number with the stronger side.
From a front angle, again, you want to knee your hip, knee, and ankle in alignment.
Don't let your knee drift inward as doing so may cause knee pain.
That's the first variation of the lunge.
Now the basic components of the lunge aren't going to change with the other variations, but there are some nuances in the technique, as well as the emphasis on which muscles they emphasize.
2. Best Lunge Variation For Glutes: Reverse Lunge
The reverse lunge is probably the second easiest variation of the lunge if you have bad knees.
For this version, start out in a standing position. Then step backward with one leg.
This brings you into that same split squat position.
Lower yourself down toward the floor as deep as you feel comfortable going such as with the split squat.
At the bottom position, drive your heel down through the floor, using your glutes to power you back up to a standing position.
If you go slowly with this, hip extension through your glutes will get you about halfway up to standing.
From there, it takes more knee extension force to get you back up to an upright standing position.
However, if you push down into the ground hard with your heel, your glutes create enough power and momentum to get you all the way back up to standing.
So the backward lunge emphasizes power to a greater extent than the split squat while still primarily focusing on glute strength vs. quad strength.
Additionally, you can alternate legs with a reverse lunge stepping back with one leg, then the other.
Repeat 10-15 repetitions on each leg.
If you do have some balance issues hold on to a chair for balance.
3. Best Lunge Variation For Quads: Forward Lunge
The third variation is just the opposite.
In the forward lunge, you start out from standing, but instead of stepping backward, you step forwards.
In the forward lunge, your knee often moves in front of your toes.
This places a lot more emphasis on your quadricep at the bottom part of the movement and less emphasis on your glutes.
That's not necessarily a good or a bad thing.
It is what it is.
If your goal is to train your quads and get quads stronger, then the forward lunge is a great exercise.
But the more you use your quadriceps, the more that compresses your kneecap (patella) on your thigh bone (femur). This can create patellofemoral pain.
Therefore, if you have bad knees, choose the split squat or the backward lunge instead of the forward lunge.
4. Best Lunge Variation For Balance: Walking Lunges
The fourth version of the lunge is a walking lunge.
During a walking lunge, you start by doing a forward lunge, but instead of pushing backwards up to a standing position, you push up and forward.
Then you take a step with the back leg so that it becomes the front leg.
Go down into a split squat position. Push back up to standing, and then step again.
Repeat this process so that you progress across the room.
A walking lunge challenges your balance more because you're going to have to go from a lunge all the way back up and onto the next step without placing your other foot on the ground. Therefore, you have a much longer period of single limb support.
Additionally, you're moving across the room, so there's really no way that you can hold on for balance.
So you do need a little better balance if you're going to do a walking lunge.
The walking lunge allow you to take a longer step than a forward lunge. Therefore, you get more hip extension (glute strengthening) in a walking lunge as compared to a forward lunge. Additionally, there's not quite as much compression force on your knee.
However, you do have to create a lot of power at this bottom position though in order to not only get you up to standing but also help transition you into the next step.
Dumbbell Lunges
If you get strong enough at doing walking lunges or any of the other variations of lunges, you can add weight.
I would highly recommend, though, that the only weight you use is dumbbells or something that you can hang down by your side.
If you're doing lunges with a barbell across your shoulders and you happen to lose your balance, the barbell could come down on top of you.
If you're using dumbbells, you can just easily drop them and let them go, and it doesn't harm anything (other than maybe the floor).
Conclusion
Hopefully this post gave you a better understanding of how to do lunges with bad knees. Just to review, the 4 variations discussed were:
- Split Squat (Split Lunge)
- Reverse Lunge for Glute Strength
- Forward Lunge for Quad Strength
- Walking Lunges
Again, the split squat and/or reverse lunge are probably the best variations to start out with if you have knee pain.
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