How to Kick at Chest Level
Kicking at chest level requires a bit of practice before you can do it successfully without hurting yourself. Kick at a chest level with help from a fitness professional in this free video clip.
Hello, my name is Janette Janero. I'm a personal trainer, and today I'm going to show you how to kick at chest level. This movement is very common in a lot of aerobic classes. So you want to make sure that you are performing it correctly before you head on to the gym. The first thing you're going to do is go ahead and get in your fighting stance. Your kicking leg is going to be placed behind you. You're going to keep your core tight and you're going to bring your arms up for balance. Next thing you're going to do, you're going to lift up your leg so that your thigh is parallel with the floor. The next step is very important. Many times people think that when you kick, you lead with your toe, in fact, you want that toe to be facing up to the ceiling and you want to think about your heel or the instep of your foot, hitting the target. If you're going to be in an exercise class though, you're not going to have a target. So when you are looking in the mirror, go ahead and aim for chest level. So once again, you're going to bring your thigh up so your leg is parallel with the floor and you're going to kick forward. Now if you perform this with too much power, you can actually hurt the connective tissues of the knee. So when you kick, I want you to think about conserving your energy and you want to bring your leg back in. So in other words, when you are kicking, you're not just letting that energy go through the bottom of your foot. You're going to go ahead and save enough to come back. So kick and come back. Think about bringing your leg back in, not just kicking forward.