There are leg exercises you can do to improve lunges. It’s important to focus on various exercises that can help you improve your strength, eventually aiding with other exercises.
Usually, lunges are a common exercise on leg days. There are variations of this exercise, but all of them require quad strength.
Best Leg Exercises to Improve Lunges
The following are some of the exercises you can do if you want to increase your quad strength to do better lunges.
1) Bodyweight Squats
These are the most common exercises that are usually used as warm-ups for leg days. Bodyweight squats focus on your quadriceps and help activate the muscles. Moreover, bodyweight movements are a proven way of increasing strength and muscle endurance.
2) Barbell Squats
Undoubtedly, barbell squats are the top pick among the leg exercises. They work on your body by targeting your quads, glutes and even hamstrings.
You can do barbell squats or front squats based on what works for you better. However, start light, so that you get the hang of the exercise before moving to heavier weights.
3) Leg Press
Like barbell squats, leg press is a compound movement that works on your quads, glutes and hamstrings.
All you need to do is place your feet properly on the platform so that the required muscle group is worked upon. Your foot placement determines a major portion of this exercise.
4) Goblet Squats
If you’re looking for a dumbbell exercise to work on your quadriceps, goblet squats are a good one. The more variations you find to work on your quads, the more muscle activation and endurance you can target.
To improve your lunges, you need to have a strong set of quadriceps, which can help with the overall exercise.
5) Hack Squats
Another top compound movement in leg exercises is hack squats. You need to focus on the amount of weight you’re stacking, as the weight will rest on your shoulders. While padding is provided, sometimes heavy weights can cause disbalance and lead to unwanted injuries.
6) Leg Extensions
This is an isolation exercise for the quadriceps. Usually, all gyms have this machine, and if you have access to one, you must use it for your leg days.
Isolation exercises help focus only on one muscle group. That allows the muscles to work by themselves and boost strength and endurance without any additional support from a secondary muscle group.
7) Squat Holds
If you want to test the endurance of your quadriceps and boost it further, you should try doing squat holds.
If you find simple squat hold easy, add a plate weight to your thighs once you’ve taken the hold position. Meanwhile, you can do the chair hold pose, which is without the back support, and check your muscle endurance by seeing how long you can hold it.
Bottom Line
The aforementioned exercises are some of the best leg exercises to improve your lunges, as they focus on strengthening the quad muscles.