What muscles do lateral lunges work?

The quads of the bending leg do the work, with the glutes extending that hip and the muscles on the outside of it holding you over your foot. The inside of the straight leg is loaded through a long position as your weight travels away from it.

Should both feet point forward?

Yes, and both heels stay down. Turning the straight leg foot out opens the hip and releases the tension the exercise is built around, which is the most common way this movement quietly stops working.

How wide should I step?

Wide enough that you can feel your weight arrive over one foot, and no wider than you can hold with both feet flat. Those two conditions together define your width today.

Why does my inner thigh feel stretched?

Because it is. Your straight leg stays planted while your body moves away from it, which takes the inside of that thigh into a long position under load. That is the movement working, not a fault.

How do I make lateral lunges harder?

Hold a dumbbell or a kettlebell at your chest. That adds load without changing anything about the movement, which is more useful than adding steps once the bodyweight version stops being difficult.

Back to the library

Bodyweight · beginner · upper legs

Lateral walking lunges

Also called Side lunge, Lateral lunge, Side to side lunge, Walking lateral lunge.

The short answer

A lateral walking lunge steps one foot wide to the side, shifts your weight over it and sits down into that hip while the other leg stays straight, then pushes back to standing and repeats in the same direction. The quads of the bending leg do the work, with the glutes and the muscles on the outside of that hip holding you over the foot. The straight leg is not resting: your weight traveling away from it carries the inside of that thigh into a long position, and there is nothing else in this library that does that.

How to do it

Step oneStand with feet together and hands on your hips or extended in front.
Step twoStep one foot out wide to the side and lower into a lateral lunge by shifting your weight over that foot.
Step threeKeep the opposite leg straight and both feet flat on the ground.
Step fourPush off the bent leg to bring your feet back together.
Step fiveRepeat in the same direction for the desired steps, then switch sides.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

The foot on your straight leg has turned outward or its heel has come up.

WhyTurning that foot out lets your hip open and takes the tension out of the inside of the leg, which is the part the exercise is loading. It happens because the position is more comfortable that way.

FixKeep both feet pointing forward and both heels down. If they will not stay there, take a shorter step. The width you can hold with flat feet is the width you have today.

You drop straight down and feel it entirely in the front of your bending knee.

WhyYour hips have gone down without going back, so the knee has to travel forward to make room and the hip contributes very little.

FixPush your backside back toward the wall behind you as you shift sideways, so you end up sitting into the hip rather than folding at the knee. Your shin on that side should stay reasonably upright.

Your chest ends up over your bent knee and your back is rounded.

WhyThe torso has followed the weight sideways and downward instead of staying tall, which usually means you are trying for more depth than the position currently allows.

FixStay upright through the chest and stop the descent where you can hold that. Reaching your hands forward as a counterweight makes the upright version easier to find.

It feels like a slightly wide squat rather than a sideways movement.

WhyThe step is too narrow. Without a genuinely wide step there is no weight shift onto one leg, so both legs share the work and the straight leg is never lengthened.

FixStep further out, far enough that you can clearly feel your weight arrive over one foot. If that width is not available yet, this is the thing to build rather than something to work around.

Lateral lunge or sumo squat

Both put you in a wide stance and both involve the inside of your thighs, which is why people treat them as interchangeable. They are not.

A sumo squat keeps your weight between both feet and lowers you straight down. Both legs work at once, both knees bend, and the position is symmetrical from start to finish.

A lateral lunge moves your weight onto one leg. That leg bends and works, and the other stays straight while your body travels away from it, which carries the inside of that thigh into a long position under load.

So the sumo squat is a two-legged strength movement with a wide stance, and the lateral lunge is a one-legged movement that also asks something of the leg that is not working. If you want both legs loaded, squat. If you want one leg loaded and the other lengthened, lunge sideways.

Lateral lunge or Cossack squat

The Cossack squat is what a lateral lunge becomes when you go much deeper, and the change is not simply more of the same.

In a lateral lunge both feet stay flat and pointing forward, which caps how deep you can go before the straight leg pulls you up short. That cap is part of the design.

A Cossack squat lifts the toes of the straight leg and rolls that foot onto its heel, which releases the constraint and lets the working hip go all the way down. It is a much larger range demand at the hip and ankle both.

If you can do a lateral lunge comfortably and want more depth, the Cossack is the next thing. If you cannot yet keep both feet flat at a moderate width, the deeper version will just hide the problem.

The direction almost nothing else trains

Look down the list of movements on this site and count how many move you side to side. Squats, hinges, presses, pulls, lunges forward and back: nearly everything happens in the plane running from your front to your back.

The lateral lunge is one of the few entries here that does not. Your weight travels across your body, one hip has to hold you over a foot that is out to the side, and the other leg is loaded through a range it rarely visits.

That is a genuine reason to have it in a week of training, and it is the whole of the reason. You will find this exercise sold as injury prevention, or as building agility, or as unlocking athletic movement. We are not going to tell you any of that, because we have not found evidence that it transfers to anything, and the transfer claim is where fitness writing usually stops being checkable.

What we can tell you is that it is a direction you probably do not train, and that the leg you think is resting is doing more than it looks like.

The usual ceiling applies. With no weight this becomes an endurance exercise fairly quickly, and holding a dumbbell or a kettlebell at your chest raises the demand without changing the movement at all.

What it is for

Lateral walking lunges are a lower body exercise that targets the quadriceps and glutes through a side-to-side lunge pattern. They improve frontal plane strength, hip abductor activation, and dynamic balance.

Questions people ask

What muscles do lateral lunges work?: The quads of the bending leg do the work, with the glutes extending that hip and the muscles on the outside of it holding you over your foot. The inside of the straight leg is loaded through a long position as your weight travels away from it.
Should both feet point forward?: Yes, and both heels stay down. Turning the straight leg foot out opens the hip and releases the tension the exercise is built around, which is the most common way this movement quietly stops working.
Lateral lunge or sumo squat?: A sumo squat keeps your weight between both feet and works both legs at once. A lateral lunge shifts your weight onto one leg and lengthens the other. Different jobs, both wide.
How wide should I step?: Wide enough that you can feel your weight arrive over one foot, and no wider than you can hold with both feet flat. Those two conditions together define your width today.
Why does my inner thigh feel stretched?: Because it is. Your straight leg stays planted while your body moves away from it, which takes the inside of that thigh into a long position under load. That is the movement working, not a fault.
How do I make lateral lunges harder?: Hold a dumbbell or a kettlebell at your chest. That adds load without changing anything about the movement, which is more useful than adding steps once the bodyweight version stops being difficult.