The Side Thrust Kick

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.