Lunges are killing my feet

[nancy324]

My feet feel abused after doing my lunges. The rear foot has to stretch into such a painful position. Is there any way of modifying lunges to go a little easier on the back foot?

 

[gettingthere]

They used to hurt my foot too. I started paying more attention to the angle of my foot and that helped. When I first started doing lunges, I think my foot was more at about a 45 degree angle and that really hurt. So now, when I step my back foot on my toes, I make an effort to have the rest of my foot (the arch and heel part of my foot) as close to a 90 degree angle as possible. When I finally figured this out, it was a big relief to my tootsies. That also helped me realize I was wasn't using the front leg enough.


Hope that helped more than confused!

Best,
Liz

 

[Jane P]

I have the same problem. I can't do static lunges, just can't do 'em.
My feet are flat and I don't have a strong enough arch to support them, especially with extra weight on my back.

I often squat to the side instead. I can also do a few moving lunges because the feet get a little break between each one.

On workouts like PLB, I just skip the lunges. I may do one of the other leg exercises twice. My quads are developing nicely without them so I don't worry about it.

It's hard when you find an exercise that's used a lot that you just can't do, but there's always a way to modify.

 

[nancy324]

Jane-
You're right; I should have mentioned that my feet are completely flat. I guess that's why lunges are more difficult for us. :-(

 

[Jane P]

I often do and extra set of squats and plies during static lunges. When Cathe lunges on one foot I do squats, when she switches to the other foot I do plies. Also try moving lunges, I can do those as long as I don't go too heavy with the weights. I also wear good arch supports in my shoes.

Jane