When I was in the gym on Sunday I did 3 sets of lunges. There were a couple of other people also doing them but both their techniques were very different to mine. One person lunged as far forward as possible and their knee on their back leg practically touched the floor while the other person had a minimal bend in their legs and their front thigh was at about 45°.

So what is the correct technique for a lunge?

I have always followed the following:

head up; back straight; knees slightly bent when you prepare to lunge.
and in the lunge the front leg bent at a 90-degree angle; knee above foot in straight line, not bent forward over foot or back behind heel; the back leg extended far with foot perpendicular to the leg.

Same as Split Squats, just with an exaggerated step into it. Then of course a push back.

Knee does go over front foot. As far as possible; just ensure your back is straight. Think of it like trying to lean back into it.

This whole thing about knees shouldn't go past the foot for squats or split squats or lunges etc is a load of crap that's just perpetuated by people that don't know what they're talking about (not you GB, this is just me ranting). Try walking up stairs without the knee going past your foot.

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that looks hard to get up from once your down there with a decent weight

exactly

split squats and lunges are probably the best thing anyone can do in addition to their Squats & (R)DLs. Too many men don't do them but man do they work the legs.

Lunges tend to hit the lower glutes more (around the gluteal fold or "butt shelf" lol)
whilst Split Squats tend to hit more inner thigh and VMO.

They hit the quads in a way that nothing else does. I did 10 sets of B. split squats tonight and you feel every bit of the quads and the stabalisers worked fully.

I think the most important thing about lunges is to push off with the rear trailing leg and not the front leading leg. I've tried this and it seems to do away with the knee problems...

In the past I always pushed with the forward leg and no matter what I did... how far I lunged or let my knee go over the foot, etc I'd always get knee problems. So I discarded them and labelled them a bad exercise...

Whilst I've not been using weights with them yet I've been using them a lot in warmups and warmdowns and the difference is very big and so far no problems

Marks1972 wrote:that looks hard to get up from once your down there with a decent weight

That's why you see Scott and myself do these with ridiculously low weights (somewhere around 50kg typically) - they're simply amazing, because of the stability and balance required.

I don't think I'll ever do lunges again - splits feel so much better...

^^ lunges are defo worth it for a change up and to hit the lower body in a different way. Plus they're good for more explosive type training. However, on the whole utilising variations of Split Squats should be a mainstay of everyone's training.

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Meant to say that the step into the lunge with the leading leg should be very exaggerated. Lift the leading leg up so that the thigh is parallel to the ground; as if you are stepping over something. It makes for a better exercise.