Curtsy Lunge: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Benefits

A curtsy lunge is a lunge where you step back and across instead of straight back, so your rear leg crosses behind the front one. The shape gives it the name, and the crossover is the entire point: it swings the hip into a position that lands the load on the side of the glute, which most leg training barely touches. If you squat and deadlift and still feel like the outside of your hips does nothing, this is the exercise that fixes that.

It is also easy to do badly. The crossed stance invites your knee to cave in and your hips to rotate, and both of those turn a useful exercise into a nagging ache. Below is how to do it properly, what it works, and how to build it into a session.

How to do a curtsy lunge

Start with no weight until the pattern feels natural. A mirror or a phone propped up sideways helps more than you would think.

1. Stand tall. Feet hip-width apart, hands on your hips or clasped at your chest. Squeeze your glutes and brace your abs so your ribs stay stacked over your pelvis.
2. Step back and across. Take your right foot back and behind your left, landing roughly one foot's width past the outside line of your left heel. Land on the ball of the rear foot; the heel stays off the floor.
3. Lower. Bend both knees and sink straight down until your front thigh is close to parallel with the floor. Your torso stays upright, and your hips stay square to the front, not rotated.
4. Watch the front knee. It should track over the middle of your left foot, not drift inward towards your big toe. This is the rep-by-rep detail that decides whether the exercise feels good or bad.
5. Drive up. Push through your front heel and mid-foot, squeeze the front glute, and return to standing. Complete all reps on one side or alternate, then swap.

Muscles worked

Gluteus maximus of the front leg does the bulk of the lifting, straightening the hip as you stand back up. Squat and lunge patterns are reliably among the strongest activators of the glute max (systematic review of gluteus maximus activation during strength and hypertrophy exercises).

Gluteus medius is the reason to bother. Sitting on the outside of the hip, it stops your pelvis dropping and your knee caving, and the crossed-behind position makes it work harder than a straight lunge does.

Quadriceps extend the front knee through the whole range, especially as you approach parallel.

Adductors on the inner thigh of the front leg control the crossover and assist coming out of the bottom. The day-after soreness people report from curtsy lunges is often here rather than in the glutes.

Hamstrings, calves and core stabilise throughout. Your trunk in particular works to resist the rotational pull of the crossed stance.

Foot and stance position genuinely change which muscles take the load in lunge patterns, with research on forward lunges showing that foot progression angle and stance width shift lower-limb activation (study on foot progression angle and stance width during lunge exercises). Translated into practice: small changes to where your feet land are not cosmetic, so pick a foot position and stay consistent from rep to rep.

Benefits

• It reaches the side of the glute. Heavy bilateral lifting builds the glute max well and the medius poorly. The curtsy lunge is one of the few loaded movements that targets the medius without a band around your knees.
• It exposes and fixes imbalances. Single-leg work means your stronger side cannot cover for the weaker one, and most people find one side noticeably steadier than the other in this movement.
• It trains hip control under rotation. Real life and most sport involves the leg loading while the hip rotates. Training that on purpose beats avoiding it.
• It needs almost nothing. Bodyweight, a metre of floor, and optionally one dumbbell. Add an exercise mat if your floor is hard on the rear toes.
• It supports the twice-weekly strength habit the NHS recommends for all major muscle groups (UK physical activity guidelines).

Common mistakes

Front knee caving in. The single biggest one. The crossed stance actively encourages it. Fix it by consciously pushing the front knee out towards your little toe as you descend, and by shortening the step.

Rotating the hips. If your pelvis swings to follow the back foot, you lose the glute medius work you came for and load your lower back instead. Square hips, shorter step.

Leaning forward. Torso should stay upright. Holding a dumbbell at your chest is the easiest fix, because the counterweight in front helps you sit back rather than tip over.

Putting weight on the back foot. The rear leg is a kickstand, not a lifting leg. If you feel it working hard, you are shifting weight backwards. About 80 percent of your weight belongs on the front leg.

Going too deep too early. Depth is earned. If your hips tilt or your front heel lifts near the bottom, stop the rep higher and work on ankle and hip mobility separately.

Variations

Bodyweight curtsy lunge. Where everyone starts. Master it before adding load.

Goblet curtsy lunge. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell at your chest. The front counterweight keeps you upright and makes depth easier, which is why it is the best first loaded version. Our goblet squat guide explains the same hold in more detail.

Dumbbells at your sides. Heavier loading for when the goblet position runs out of headroom. A pair of adjustable dumbbells makes progressing in small steps painless.

Curtsy lunge to lateral raise of the leg. Come up out of the lunge and lift the rear leg out to the side before stepping back. Turns it into a proper glute medius burner.

Deficit curtsy lunge. Stand on a low step so the rear leg travels further. Increases range at the front hip, and it is harder than it sounds.

Banded curtsy lunge. Loop a light band above the knees to force the front knee out. Useful as a teaching tool if caving is your habit.

Sets and reps

• Learning: 2 sets of 8 per leg, bodyweight, focusing only on knee position and square hips. Rest 45 seconds.
• Strength and shape: 3 sets of 10 to 12 per leg with a dumbbell or kettlebell, resting 60 to 90 seconds.
• Endurance or circuits: 2 to 3 sets of 15 per leg with light or no load, resting 30 seconds.

Slot them after your main lift, not before it. A sensible lower-body session might run squats or hip thrusts first, then curtsy lunges, then something for the hamstrings. If you want a straightforward step before this one, work through the reverse lunge first, and if you want to go heavier on one leg later, the Bulgarian split squat is the obvious progression.

Recommended reads

1. Reverse lunge technique guide
2. Bulgarian split squat guide
3. Glute exercises that actually work
4. The best adjustable dumbbells in the UK
5. The best kettlebells in the UK