Pedal forward
Side view
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Side kick bicycle

5 reps each side · intermediate

The side kick series set-up (lying on the right side, head on the outstretched bottom arm). The top leg, held at hip height, pedals a big bicycle: it swings forward straight to about 70°, bends so the knee draws back past the hip with the heel toward the seat, reaches long behind the body, straightens and sweeps forward again. Then the other way round. The trunk stays still.

-30°Ankle dorsiflexion
3°Knee flexion
22°Hip flexion
80°Trunk from vertical
171°Arm to trunk
0°Elbow flexion
50Ankle spacing, cm
27Hand spacing, cm
-13Knee outside ankle, cm
–Knee cave, ° inside toe line
–Load left / right, %
-17Pelvis drop, cm

Load and joint demand

Bodyweight: no weights. Joint demand below is your own body's weight in this position.

Shoulder, per side
12 / 12

N·m now / peak over the rep.

Faults

Faults grow with knee bend and apply to lifts standing on the floor. The fault check flags a knee caving more than 10° inside the line of the toes and a load split beyond 60/40. Knee cave shows best in the front camera.

Body

Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.

Muscles worked

Abs and core
35 pts
Quads
29 pts
Glutes
22 pts
Hamstrings
16 pts
Lower back
6 pts

Effort and your quota

7/10 effort7fatigue per set

5 slow, controlled reps on each side. Pilates is practised for control, balance and mobility, never to failure, so this does not change with your limits.

Level: intermediate. One round counts like light conditioning work: 67 legs points, 41 core points.

Prime movers

Hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris), gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps, gluteus medius (holding the leg up), obliques and quadratus lumborum (holding the trunk still).

What to look for

  • Keep the top leg at hip height all the way round.
  • Bend the knee only once the leg has come back to the hip; reach long behind before you straighten.
  • Hips stacked: do not let the pelvis roll back as the leg goes forward.
How the model works, and its limits

One 3D skeleton drives both views. Segment lengths and widths are Winter's anthropometric ratios of height; segment masses and centre-of-mass positions follow Dempster's data. For free-standing lifts the whole-body angle is found numerically so the combined centre of mass of lifter and load sits over the middle of the foot. Arms and legs use two-link inverse kinematics with a pole direction. Rep timing follows a minimum-jerk profile.

Balance is quasi-static, so ballistic lifts are shown slowed down. Cable pull and pad support forces are not modelled. The spine is one rigid segment and joints have no range-of-motion limits or muscle forces.