1. Practicing lunges in your gym workout can improve your athletic performance in sports like tennis, skiing, biking, running, volleyball, snowboarding, surfing, cycling, hiking, cross country jogging and many other sports that require lower body strength and endurance.

2. Lunges are compound movements, which means that when you are performing a lunge, you will be exercising many muscles at the same time. This is the most efficient way to work out.

3. You will be getting an aerobic workout while you strength train. If you were wearing a heart rate monitor, you would notice that your heart rate will go up while performing a round the clock lunge. This is the optimal way to strengthen your heart. Your heart rate will go up and then come down during your rest period after you complete the exercise.

4. Round the clock lunges challenge your brain. Because you are shifting your focus from front lunges to front angle lunges to side lunges to back angle lunges to reverse lunges, you will have to focus on what you are doing, be in the moment and think about what you are doing. Your nervous system will not go to sleep doing the same thing over and over again – you will wake up mentally and physically, training yourself to react in the moment, just as we do when performing in any athletic event.

5. Round the clock lunges challenge your balance. You have to have good balance to perform a good round the clock lunge in the first place, and adjusting your lunge angle constantly will make your balance even better.

6. Dynamic lunges challenge your core. You pull your navel up and in, activating your deep core muscles and getting the back of the body and the front of the body working together.

7. By challenging your brain, your core and improving your balance, you will have the side benefit of improving your eyesight! About 20 percent of your vision is devoted to proprioception. When you have good balance, you take the stress off your visual system.

8. You’ll notice a deep sense of relaxation after you are complete. Paradoxically, the deeper you work in your nervous system, the more you will relax. Many people try to relax by lying around and still feel tense. When you work deeply into your body, you can release the tension even more effectively.

9. Vary this exercise by holding hand weights or altering the rhythm. Form is absolutely everything in exercise. Without good form, you injure yourself. With good form, you strengthen your muscles into good posture. Once you have excellent form, you can take this exercise up a notch by changing the rhythm – make some parts faster, some parts slower.

10. This exercise gives you the whole package – core stability, core strength, muscle strength, aerobic conditioning, power and balance.

Click here for a deomnstration.

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Warm up:

Run in place for 1 minute, and skip side to side for another minute. (2 minutes)

Workout:

-Jump Squats for 30 seconds

-Regular grip push Ups for 1 minute (females can use their knees)

-Jump Squats for 30 seconds

-Plank for 30 seconds

-Jumping Jacks for 30 seconds

-Bicep Curls while doing static Wall Squats for 30 seconds (squat down with your back against a wall, with your knees at a right angle, until you’ve completed 10 reps of Bicep Curls)

-Break for 30 seconds

-Mountain Climbers for 30 seconds

-Back Flies for 30 seconds

- Stationary Lunges 30 seconds for each leg.

-Shoulder Press for 30 seconds

-Seated Squats for 1 minute

-Stretch

About the Author: Michael L. Moore Jr. is a personal trainer and a military fitness leader with over 10 years of experience. His specialties are strength and endurance training as well as weight loss and functional workouts.

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