I'm a soft bodied sloth lately :(
But back when I was not, my two favorite exercises were dead lifting and this other one I don't know the name of where you use an Olympic bar With weights on only one end. Hold the bar just below the weight, and use the non weighted end as a hinge at the base of the floor and wall. Then you almost do a lunge to one side, stand up right, then do the other. It kills your entire body. Not sure I explained it well enough to make sense.
With the second exercise you're describing, do you a set of lunges on one side of the body, then switch and do the other set? Or are you switching the lunging foot between reps?
I've recently started going to the gym for powerlifting and general strength training, having only done bodyweight strength training before, and I'm really digging it. Would be nice to have another exercise in the old repertoire.
Ok, and are you facing the weight and holding it in front of you, at waist or shoulder height? That's the only way it makes sense to me.