Megan Thee Stallion Revealed Her Favorite Glute Exercise—Donkey Kicks. A Personal Trainer Says Hikers Can Do Them As a Warm-Up.

The donkey kick exercise isn’t new: this move is a longtime staple in Pilates, barre, and bodyweight workouts. But it is newly trendy, thanks to Megan Thee Stallion shouting out the donkey kick as one of her go-to exercises in a recent interview with The Cut. 

“I’m going to call them stallion kicks,” the Grammy Award-winning rapper joked in the interview. What’s much less funny, though, is how much this exercise can fire up, and burn out, your glutes.

As a certified personal trainer, I’ve programmed this move into my own workouts and into group fitness classes, too, because it’s a really effective way to isolate your butt muscles.

Here’s why the donkey kick is so good for your glutes. And doing them regularly can keep your lower body ready so you can take on the trails with ease.

How to Do the Donkey Kick

The starting position for the donkey kick is really simple. First, get on all fours with your wrists under your shoulders and knees under your hips. From there, lift one leg straight up, keeping the knee on that same lifted leg bent to 90 degrees. Then, with control, lower your leg back down to complete one rep.

Do a set number of reps; you can do the standard ten reps if you’d like, but if you want to bang out more, then that’s totally OK. Then switch legs and do ten on that leg. That’s one set. Repeat for three sets.

Why Donkey Kicks Are So Good for Your Glutes

This move looks pretty easy, and in a sense, it is. Many other lower-body exercises that work the glutes—like squats, lunges, step-ups, and deadlifts—also engage other muscle groups. But because the donkey kick keeps your knees bent, which largely takes your hamstrings out of the equation, you’re really just isolating your glutes here. That means it hits those muscles—hard.

The gluteus maximus (your biggest butt muscle) does the heavy lifting to raise your elevated leg, while your gluteus medius and minimus (two smaller muscles that form your side butt) help stabilize your hips. Your core also stabilizes the move, and an engaged core keeps your torso still while you move one leg at a time. You’ll know you’re doing the move correctly when you feel lots of tension in your butt.

Though it’s a great way to isolate your glutes, donkey kicks do have their limitations. For one, they’re not the most functional—meaning the exercise doesn’t closely resemble how we typically move in sports or day-to-day life. Contrast that with a step-up, squat, or lunge, which also work the glutes but in more typical movement patterns similar to how you’d hike up or downhill.

Second, it’s hard to add a bunch of external load to the donkey kick. Sure, you could place a dumbbell under the knee of your lifted leg, or loop a resistance band above your knees (or even wear ankle weights), but you can’t easily pile on a ton of external load. The end result? You eventually reach a ceiling with your glute-strengthening gains. 

The Best Way for Outdoor Athletes to Benefit From Donkey Kicks? Use It as a Warm-Up.

If you’re a hiker, runner, or backpacker, the donkey kick can have a time and place in your workout routine.

As the International Sports Sciences Association points out, incorporating this exercise into a warm-up can help you activate your glutes more effectively during the rest of your workout. That’s exactly how I’d program them for outdoor athletes: do them before your next hike, run, or backpacking adventure to switch on your glutes so your butt is ready to work as soon as you hit the trail.

When your glutes are fired up and ready before your favorite outdoor activity, you’ll be better able to push forward with each step and may reduce your risk of knee pain and injury. Plus, the donkey kicks give you a little stretch in your hip flexors—muscles that are chronically tight in many people—so loosening them up can help you more comfortably navigate terrain.

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