Kicks

Roundhouse kick (mawashi-geri / dollyo chagi / Thai kick)

Names by art: Karate: mawashi-geri 回し蹴り · Taekwondo: dollyo chagi 돌려차기 · Muay Thai: te เตะ · Savate: fouetté

The roundhouse kick travels in a curve and hits from the side. It is the kick that best shows how different arts solve the same problem: one study captured expert Muay Thai, karate and taekwondo practitioners with the same equipment and found shared foundations — and clear differences.

⚠ Train with an instructor. Learn and practise this technique only under a qualified instructor, on a suitable surface and with a cooperative partner. This page explains; it does not replace a teacher.

Diagram 1. Pivot on the supporting foot (1), hip rotation (2), knee extension (3). The foot follows a curved path to the target.

1: supporting foot pivots
2: hip rotates and lifts
3: knee extends
v: curved foot path

Step by step

From guard, step slightly out at an angle with the front foot if you need to close distance.
Pivot on the ball of the supporting foot so the heel turns towards the target.
Rotate the hips and lift the kicking knee to the side; the trunk leans away a little as a counterweight.
Extend (karate, taekwondo) or swing through with a less bent knee (Muay Thai), striking with the instep or the shin.
Return along the same path, or turn through after the kick (Muay Thai), and recover your guard.

Common errors

Not pivoting the supporting foot: the knee and hip of the supporting leg twist under load.
Kicking with the toes or the top of the toes instead of the instep or shin.
Throwing the arms out wide: balance improves but the face is open.
Lifting the knee in front and then swinging sideways — the kick is telegraphed and slow.

Biomechanics: what the body does

Main muscles

Hip abductors (gluteus medius and minimus), hip flexors, quadriceps, the obliques that rotate the pelvis and trunk, and the calf and foot muscles of the supporting leg during the pivot.

Joints

Supporting ankle and hip (rotation), pelvis (axial rotation), kicking hip (abduction and flexion), knee (extension).

Kinetic chain

Gavagan & Sayers, 2017 identified what effective roundhouse kicks share in all three arts: rapid pelvic rotation, hip abduction and flexion, knee extension, and a fast movement of the whole body’s centre of mass towards the target.

Base and balance

A single rotating foot is the base. Leaning the trunk away balances the leg’s mass; the pivot lets the hips turn without twisting the supporting knee.

Physics and maths

v = ω · r

Foot speed equals the angular velocity of the lower leg (ω, in rad/s) times the distance from the knee to the foot (r).

F̄ · Δt = m_ef · Δv

Impulse: the force on the target depends on the effective mass behind the foot and on how quickly its velocity is stopped.

ω [rad/s] = ω [°/s] × π / 180

Converting the published knee velocities into radians per second.

What studies measured

Gavagan & Sayers, 2017: 8 experts per art, 9-camera motion capture at 500 Hz, pad at mastoid (head) height. Foot velocity at impact correlated moderately with relative impact force (r = 0.66).
Execution time: Muay Thai 1.02 ± 0.15 s versus taekwondo 1.54 ± 0.52 s. Knee-extension velocity: karate 947 ± 94 °/s and taekwondo 943 ± 106 °/s, faster than Muay Thai 706 ± 200 °/s. Vertical centre-of-mass velocity: Muay Thai 1.24 ± 0.15 m/s, greater than karate (0.78 ± 0.24) and taekwondo (0.93 ± 0.19).
Estevan & Falco, 2013: 12 expert and 21 novice taekwondo athletes. Novices reacted more slowly when kicking to the head than to the chest; experts performed similarly at both heights.
Góra et al., 2025: in five elite female ITF athletes, the effective mass of the turning kick was about 18% of body mass (85% for the side kick).

Our calculation from cited data
Converting Gavagan & Sayers, 2017: 947 °/s ≈ 16.5 rad/s (karate) and 706 °/s ≈ 12.3 rad/s (Muay Thai) — the karate knee extends about 34% faster. Yet the Muay Thai kicks took about 0.5 s less in total than the taekwondo kicks: speed of one joint is not the same as speed of the whole kick.

Our calculation from cited data
With the mean body mass in Góra et al., 2025 (64.2 kg), 18% is about 11.6 kg of effective mass in the turning kick — a light, fast mass compared with about 54.6 kg (85%) in the side kick.

Diagram 2. Peak knee-extension velocity during the roundhouse kick, 8 experts per art (Gavagan & Sayers, 2017).

°/s: degrees per second

Numbers come from the cited studies, with their sample and conditions. They describe those athletes in that laboratory, not every practitioner.

Comparison across arts

All three arts share the same foundations (Gavagan & Sayers, 2017); the differences follow from rules, targets and the striking surface.

Art	Surface	Knee action	Measured trait
Muay Thai	Shin	Less bent; the leg swings through the target	Shortest total time; most vertical centre-of-mass motion
Karate	Instep or ball of the foot	Chamber and snap	Fastest knee extension (947 °/s)
Taekwondo	Instep	Chamber and snap, often with a spin of the supporting foot	Fast knee (943 °/s); longest and most variable total time

Safety

Shin conditioning should be gradual; there is no need to kick hard objects.
Always pivot the supporting foot, especially on mats where the foot can stick.
Use shin guards and head protection for partner work; head kicks require control and experience.
Estevan & Falco, 2013 suggests that beginners lose performance when kicking high: build up height gradually.

Train with an instructor. Learn and practise this technique only under a qualified instructor, on a suitable surface and with a cooperative partner. This page explains; it does not replace a teacher.

Muay Thai Karate Taekwondo Kickboxing Savate MMA

Straight punch (reverse punch / cross) Front kick (mae-geri / teep / ap chagi) Side kick (yoko-geri / yop chagi) Breakfalls (ukemi) Major outer reap (o-soto-gari) Shoulder throw (seoi-nage) Rear naked choke (mata-leão / hadaka-jime) Cross armlock (juji-gatame / armbar)

Sports science bibliography Code of Honour Glossary

Sources

Conrad J. Gavagan & Mark G. L. Sayers (2017). A biomechanical analysis of the roundhouse kicking technique of expert practitioners: a comparison between the martial arts disciplines of Muay Thai, Karate, and Taekwondo. PLoS ONE 12(8), e0182645. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0182645
Isaac Estevan & Coral Falco (2013). Mechanical analysis of the roundhouse kick according to height and distance in taekwondo. Biology of Sport 30(4), 275–279. DOI 10.5604/20831862.1077553
Tomasz Góra, Jacek Wąsik, Dariusz Mosler & Dorota Ortenburger (2025). Relationship of kinetic and somatic variables to kicking strength in female taekwon-do athletes. Acta of Bioengineering and Biomechanics 27(1). DOI 10.37190/abb-02592-2025-02
Joseph Hamill, Kathleen M. Knutzen & Timothy R. Derrick (2015). Biomechanical Basis of Human Movement (4th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. ISBN 9781451177305

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