Squats are considered to be the king of all exercises. So this should be a short discussion, or is it? While the king sits on the throne, those beneath him get the work done. Are lunges one of those unsung heroes working in the trenches helping us reach our goals, and should be legitimized as a prince and a true heir to the throne instead of just being the bastard son of the king?
Squats deserve the title of king, but in life, most of our leg movements are unilateral. Walking, running, climbing stairs, jumping, and kicking are the exact movements lunges work.
Some of our top reasons for doing resistance exercises are to develop strength, hypertrophy, athleticism and mobility.
We’ve already established squats are a bilateral exercise because we use both feet at the same time and equally. In contrast, lunges are unilateral, and we emphasize one leg over the other. Split squats are also a unilateral movement, and we’ll talk about where they fit into the debate. But first, the advantages of bilateral training.
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The biggest plus is stability; there’s less of a balance issue, allowing us to lift heavier with a reduced risk of injury resulting in the biggest gains in pure strength and power. This translates well into sports like Olympic and powerlifting or American football.
European football, on the other hand, is where lunges wear the crown. Soccer’s a sport that requires a lot of running, which can be strengthened with walking lunges. The ability to change directions quickly? Injury proof this skill with a lateral lunge. How about kicking a ball? Try pendulum or step through lunges.
To be fair American football needs all these skills too. The point I’m making is lunges do an excellent job of strengthening us in movement, and as a result, I’d give it top marks for helping us develop athleticism.
Start with regular squats or a goblet squat which is one of the easiest squats to master; get comfortable with the movement pattern and range of motion. Most people will always have some form of bilateral squat in their program.
Regarding hypertrophy and balanced muscle development, single-leg training is a must. With a regular squat, your dominant leg could easily end up doing more work and, as a result, be bigger and stronger than your non-dominant side.
I wouldn’t recommend lunges; this is where split squats come in; even though your feet are staggered, they are stationary, keeping you more stable, you’ll be working your stability and core muscles more than a regular squat, but you can safely load it heavier than a lunge.
Since you’re working one leg at a time, you’re using less weight than a regular squat making it easier on your spine. This is also an advantage for guys who don't have that much weight to work with.
Make sure you start with your weaker leg and do all your repetitions on one side before resting, then switch to the other leg and match the number of repetitions you did on your weaker side. I rest a minute between each leg.
A popular variation of the split squat is the Bulgarian split squat, I favour a regular split squat when it comes to loading heavier and build muscle. The Bulgarian has some unique advantages.
One of them is it improves our balance; because of this, I wouldn’t advance straight from a traditional split squat to a Bulgarian. First, I’d go to a reverse lunge; it requires more stability and balance, but it’s easier to perform than the Bulgarian.
It’s a great glute exercise because our rear leg is elevated, increasing the hips' range of motion, and it has to work harder to help stabilize the body as it moves.
The stretch we get with this extra range improves our mobility too.
Elevating our front foot on a step when doing a Bulgarian split squat increases the range of motion even further, allowing us to get our quads below parallel. This also works with a regular split squat.
