Legs · Bodyweight
High Knee Skips
How to do the high knee skips, the muscles it works, and the mistakes to avoid. Pulled straight from the Kovo app's exercise library.
- Equipment
- Bodyweight
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Logged as
- time
- Movement
- Flexion
- Mechanic
- Compound
How to do it
Skip forward while driving one knee high toward your chest with each bound. Swing the opposite arm up in sync and land softly on the ball of your foot before exploding into the next skip.
- 1Feel your hip flexors snap each knee up high
- 2Stay tall and explosive off the ground each bound
- 3Drive the opposite arm up to match the knee
Common mistakes
- Don't hunch forward as you skip
- Avoid landing flat-footed or heavy
- Don't let the knee drive drop low as you fatigue
Muscles worked
The high knee skips mainly works the hip flexors and calves, with the quads, glutes, lower abs, hamstrings, and tibialis anterior assisting.
- Hip FlexorsPrimary
- CalvesPrimary
- QuadsSupport
- GlutesSupport
- Lower AbsSupport
- HamstringsSupport
- Tibialis AnteriorSupport
- Lower BackMinor
- ObliquesMinor
- Front DeltsMinor
Kovo programs the high knee skips for you and tracks it every session.
We build your whole program, drop the right lifts into each workout, and adjust your weights as you get stronger. Free on iOS and Android.
More hips & adductors exercises
- How to do the butterfly stretch
- How to do the external rotation
- How to do the cable hip adduction
- How to do the internal rotation
- How to do the cobra pose
- How to do the core scrunch
Last reviewed June 2026.