Donkey kick
Muscles worked : Glutes · Core
How to do it
- Get on all fours, hands under the shoulders, knees under the hips.
- Keep one knee bent at 90° and push that foot towards the ceiling.
- Squeeze the glute at the top, without arching the lower back.
- Lower under control without resting the knee down between repetitions.
- Finish the set, then switch sides.
Common mistakes
- Arching the lower back to gain height.
- Moving too fast, swinging the leg instead of pushing it under control.
- The torso rotating instead of staying square to the floor.
Where you should feel it
The glute of the lifting leg, in isolation. If the lower back hollows to gain height, the exercise has changed nature: it is no longer working the glute but the lumbar muscles.
Range of motion
Lift until the thigh reaches the line of the torso, no further. The stopping point is where the pelvis would start to tip — often much lower than you would think.
Tempo and breathing
Two seconds to push, one second squeezed at the top, two seconds down without resting the knee. The movement must be pushed, never thrown.
What works, precisely
The gluteus maximus extends the hip, with the knee held bent to shorten the hamstrings and stop them taking over. The gluteus medius and the obliques on the opposite side stabilise the pelvis against rotation.
Movement mechanics
Open-chain hip extension with a bent knee. Keeping the knee flexed is a deliberate mechanical constraint: it places the hamstrings in active insufficiency, concentrating the extension on the gluteus maximus.
Benefits
- Isolates the glute with very little help from other groups, which is rare without equipment.
- Teaches the dissociation between hip extension and lumbar arching — a distinction that pays off in every other posterior-chain exercise.
- Puts no load on the spine, the quadruped position spreading bodyweight across four points of support.
Adapt and progress
- Easier : Reduce the range and focus on the contraction rather than the height.
- Harder : Extend the squeeze at the top, or move onto the forearms, which raises the stabilisation demand.
- Move on when : When fifteen repetitions per side go by with no hollowing of the lower back and no pelvic rotation.