Donkey Kick Exercise

What is a Donkey kick exercise?

The donkey kick exercise is a wonderful solitary workout that can strengthen your lower body, loosen up your hips, and improve your posture.
This exercise sounds weird, but it’s very beneficial. Your leg is raised in the air during this workout.

Although the primary movement in this exercise involves a quadrupedal and bent-knee hip extension, it is sometimes mistaken for a donkey kick because of its appearance. This is an excellent posture-correcting exercise.

Which muscles are used in donkey kick exercise?

• The gluteal muscles, comprising the maximus, minimus, and medius, are one of the primary muscles.
• The back, shoulder muscles, and calves are secondary muscles.

Health Benefits by doing donkey kick exercise.

• Increased muscle strength and hamstring and core strength: Resistance training movements called donkey kicks can help you build stronger muscles in your lower limbs and core.
• Clamshell workout Losing weight is possible because this workout uses more energy than your typical activities.
• Enhances Mood: This activity encourages the release of chemicals that elevate your mood.
• Reduces the chance of using one leg more than the other, as in some other exercises, by working one leg at a time. This helps to avoid muscle asymmetries.
• This can help you avoid muscle asymmetries.
• Improves sleep
• Slows down aging
• Helps to improve balance and coordination
• Helps to improve posture: This exercise strengthens your postural muscles, which are important because weak abdominal walls, extended sitting, and bad posture from using electronics for extended periods can all contribute to lower back pain. By making this exercise a regular part of your strength-training regimen, you can significantly improve all of these issues.
• This exercise Can Be Easily Modified: You may easily modify the standard donkey kick once you’ve mastered it. It can be made more difficult and aid in improving strength and stability by varying the move (by adding a weight or a band).
• This exercise Can Help to Prevent
• This exercise also Activates the Shoulder muscles.

How to do the Donkey Kick exercise in proper form?

• You must perform this exercise on all four limbs, placing your knees just below your hips and your palm beneath your shoulder.
• Maintain a balanced posture for your neck and back, flex your arms, and flex your legs to a 90-degree angle. Raise one knee off the floor and raise it until it is parallel to your trunk.
• knees are back to their starting position.
• Perform this exercise on both legs for 40 to 50 seconds, or until you’re exhausted.

Donkey Kick Exercise Video

Are there different variations of a donkey kick exercise?

Straight-leg donkey kick with half-circle

How to do it?

• A simple donkey kick exercise becomes more challenging when you incorporate a circle into it.
• You must perform this exercise on all four limbs, placing your knees just below your hips and your palm beneath your shoulder.
• Lift one leg off the floor and raise it until it is parallel to your torso, then slowly lower it while making a circle with your foot. Hold it for approximately a second, then go back to the beginning position.
• Repeat 5–6 sets of 10–20 reps on both legs.

Resistance band donkey kick

How to do it?

• You’ll need a resistance band for this workout, which you may hold in your hands right behind your head while flexing your elbows.
• Attach your lower extremity to the resistance band’s opposite side.
• Maintain a straight back while pushing your left leg upward and out.
• Then, for one full repetition, bring the knee up to your chest.
• Perform 3–4 sets of 10–15 repetitions on both legs.

Smith machine donkey kick

How to do it?

• Exercise using weight if you want to increase the growth of your gluteal muscles.
• You must go to Smith’s machine to complete this activity.
• Set the Smith machine bar so that your face is in front of the machine and you are in the beginning position on all four limbs beneath it. Your moving leg and thigh are parallel to the ground, and your foot arch is positioned beneath the bar.
• Straighten your knee slowly and deliberately by pushing from your buttocks to the arch of your foot.
• Return to the initial position after 12 to 15 repetitions on every limb for 2-3 sets.

One-legged kickback on the cable machine

How to do it?

• You will need an ankle strap-equipped cable machine for this exercise.
• The ankle strap must be fastened at the pulley’s end. You must stabilize your body on the frame and stand two feet away from the machine. You must extend the ankle strap backward sides as high as you can after engaging your core muscles and slightly flexing your hips and knees.
• Release and hold gently go back to the initial position.
• Perform 4–5 sets of 10–15 reps on each leg.

Weighted Donkey Kicks

How to do it?

• You must perform this exercise on all four limbs, placing your knees just below your hips and your palm beneath your shoulder. neutral neck and spine, extend your arms, and bend your knees to a 90-degree angle. Place a dumbbell or other weighted cuff on your right knee crisis, raise it off the floor, and raise it until it is parallel to your trunk.
• Slowly return our knees to the initial alignment.
• Perform this exercise on both legs for 40 to 50 seconds, or until you’re exhausted.

Donkey Kick Extension

How to do it?

• You must perform this exercise on all four limbs, placing your knees just below your hips and your palm beneath your shoulder.
• Maintain neck and back, extend your supported arms, engage your core, and bend your knees to a 90-degree angle. Lift your knee off the floor to torso level, hold it there, and then shift your heel away from your glute area.
• This exercise works your hamstrings. Perform it for 40–60 seconds on each leg.

Donkey Hover

How to do it?

• You must first arrange yourself in a quadrupedal position for this workout. You must raise one knee and lower the other leg in order to raise your weight-bearing knee off the ground.
• Perform 15–20 times.

Lateral Donkey Kicks

How to Do It?

• The term “donkey kick knockout” is another name for this version.
• All four limbs must be extended, and your hands and knees must be firmly planted shoulder-width apart on the floor. Squeeze your glutes and contract your core muscles as you raise your leg to the side and then straighten it outward.
• You should have the hips and shoulders instability.
• 20–30 repetitions on both sides.

When did you not do this exercise?

• If your doctor suggests you to sleep.
• If any bones in the arms or legs are broken.
• If this workout causes you any pain or discomfort.
• If you don’t feel comfortable bearing weight on all four limbs in a quadrupedal position.

FAQs

References

• Cpt, N. B. (2016, December 19). 5 donkey kick exercises to get your booty in gear. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/donkey-kick
• Tirgar, P. (2024, November 23). Donkey Kick Exercise: Health Benefits, How to do? Mobile Physiotherapy Clinic. https://mobilephysiotherapyclinic.in/donkey-kick-exercise/
• Donkey kicks. (n.d.). [Video]. Hingehealth. https://www.hingehealth.com/resources/articles/donkey-kicks/#:~:text=Donkey%20kicks%20(sometimes%20called%20donkey,that%20help%20with%20hip%20pain.