The Side Thrust Kick

Video example

In My opinion this is the easiest kick to sustain an injury from. Injuries most commonly sustained from this kick would be groin pulls. A whole lot of fun. There have been a lot of these occurring lately with some of the programs on the market.

Most of the time these kicks are done in a ballistic fashion. This is probably ok if your muscles are conditioned for it but I'm going to guess that yours are not. I'm not trying to be insulting here. Lets do this simple test. Stand with your feet together. Swing your leg to the side as high as you comfortably can. Did it touch your ear. Did your foot go over your head. If so your probably ok doing any ballistic stretching motions. As a matter of fact stop reading now because you don't need any of this information. If not then you better listen up.

Stand with your feet together. Allow your supporting foot to turn out about 45 degrees or so. Bend the supporting leg. Bring the knee up and across to the center of the body as you flip the foot. At this point the heel of the kicking foot and the "cheek" should be pointing at your opponent. Extend your leg in a thrusting fashion. not a snapping motion. This means that the knee pushes the foot, it does not pull it. Watch the video on this closely to see what I mean.

Try to keep the body upright as you kick. It also helps the workout to keep the hands up in front of you.

This exercise should work nearly all of the muscles in the supporting leg including the gluteus. It will also work the obliques.

Have fun.