maratoolCarioca Quick Step
How to do the carioca quick step
- Begin with your feet a few inches apart and your left arm up in a relaxed, athletic position.
- With your right foot, quick step behind and pull the knee up.
- Fire your arms back up when you pull the right knee, being sure that your knee goes straight up and down. Avoid turning your feet as you move and continue to look forward as you move to the side.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the adductor group down the inner thigh, which pulls the leg back toward the midline and controls the hip as it opens.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so it has to produce that force immediately on contact.
Other muscle groups are involved too: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders; the abductors stop the knee collapsing inward and hold the pelvis square; the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position.
The glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps take a share of the work as well.
Every exercise for:AdductorsAbdominalsAbductorsCalvesGlutes
How this movement works
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
These train the adductors too, using equipment this one does not:
- Groinersbody only
- Thigh Adductormachine
- Adductorfoam roll
- Band Hip Adductionsband
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 13 adductors exercises in this database, 8 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.