Fitness Tip: the forward reaching lunge


Fitness Tip: the forward reaching lunge

image0-Fitness Tip: the forward reaching lunge

Think this exercise looks easy? Try a few.

Trainer Sarah Capsolas, who leads classes at the YMCA in Mission Viejo, has a background in yoga as well as P90X. So the forward reaching lunge, or dynamic warrior 1 as she alternately calls it, blends a little of both.

It's a "little athletic for yogic purposes of balanced movement," but it's one of many exercises that have crossed over from yoga.

It's very simple: Lunge forward with one leg, flexing the hip, and reach up with your hands. The belly will be over the thigh, the torso leaning toward the floor.

"This is going to engage the whole back body when you lift your hands over your head," Capsolas said. "If you were really great at it, you could do it with weights in your hands. It's a total body exercise, working the big muscles in the legs, the hips and the butt, the back, the back of the shoulders and the core to stabilize."

It's not necessary to keep that back leg straight, but bending it tends to let the shoulders stoop and the back bend too much. You want to keep the back straight.

"Generally, if people start bending that back leg, they start rounding their spine." Keeping the leg straight "helps people stay taller in the spine."

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