Strength Training - Pro Athlete Lunges

Kenny Carrington: Hi! I am Kenny Carrington, the Director here at Velocity Sports Performance in Alexandria. I am here training with the Pro, Donna The Animal Wilkinson.

In this segment what we are going work on is lower body strength because we did explosive earlier today, we are going to do a few exercises here, but I am going to tell you about sets and reps and things that we are going to go with -- that we would normally follow for our protocol.

So, first thing we are going to do is lunges, because there are different levels of doing lunges, Donna is actually at a higher level so she is going to have a bar on her back where normally we can add a weight vest to somebody at a lower level or use dumbbells and hands for somebody at a lower level. So, the bar on her back changes the center of gravity, makes it a little higher, so this way it adds a little bit more balance and core stability involved also, which is also going to strengthen up the hip, the knee and the ankle joints also.

So, bars on the back she is just going to step out far enough so that the front shin stays straight up and down, shoulders stay straight up and down, she is going to get a little bit of a stretch on the back quad and hip flexor at the same time and then drive straight back, drive off the ground straight back and because she is in a season, and what we are going to do is six each leg today, six each leg -- can you step out a little bit farther, good.

Back heel comes up off the ground, be kind of hard not to do with that, the front foot, knees and make sure it stays on the ground as that knee of the front leg stays behind the toe. As you can see the shoulders will stand over the hips, getting a little stretch in that hip flexor and quad on the back leg and then when she finishes she is going to jump up and pop the bar up over head and bring it back down.

Give a little rest time and we are going to a second set in there.

With the lunges we are working on the quads, the hamstrings, and the glutes of the front leg. Of the back leg we are going to stretch of the quad and hip flexor. Bar comes back, alright, lines up. Make sure every time you step back to after you do, step on and do your lunge, you are stepping back and try to step in the same spot where you came from.

Its one, two, threeStill doing six each leg for this set, six each leg so for sets are rest for lunges. Being as she is in a season we are going to do four sets of six normally. You can change it, you can do three sets of ten each leg, which should be a little bit easier, weight, a little bit lighter in the weight, so somebody is going to vest her dumbbells probably have about three sets of ten, like, I said she is in a season, she is more advanced, she has got the bar on her back so we are going to have less reps, more sets involved.

That concludes our lunges for this segment.