The new series of Nine Perfect Strangers has finally landed, and it’s pretty much impossible not to notice how fit protagonist Nicole Kidman looks. If you’re one of her 10.5 million Instagram followers, you may have also seen her latest photoshoot for Allure – her legs are looking seriously strong, so it was only right we hunted down her go-to lower-body workout.
While Kidman has previously shared that she likes to keep her workouts varied (Lagree, swimming and running are all part of her rotation), last year, her co-star in Netflix film A Family Affair Joey King revealed the exact leg and glute exercises Kidman practices.
Speaking on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, King said: ‘[Nicole] taught me the most epic, awful butt workout I’ve ever learned in my life. It was so intense. I was like, “I’m a youngster. I can hang. I’m young, and I’m agile” – I thought I could hang, but I couldn’t hang.’
She revealed the workout included: donkey kicks, rainbows, and fire hydrants. ‘But you have to keep your leg in the air for like 12 years, it’s so hard.’
‘I do it still, because it’s like so effective, so I send her photos whenever I do it. I’m like, “Call an ambulance, love you!!”’
Here’s how to do each exercise properly, plus how to make them into a 20-minute workout.
Nicole Kidman’s 20-minute lower-body workout
Do: Perform each exercise for the prescribed number of reps, take 45-60 secs rest between each exercise, and repeat for four rounds.
1/Donkey kicks 
Do: 10-12 reps, then switch sides and repeat
- Get on all fours, with your hands stacked directly under shoulders, and knees under hips. Make sure your back is flat (think: balancing a cup of coffee on your lower back), and tuck your chin slightly so the back of your neck is facing the ceiling. Without rounding your spine, engage your lower abdominals.
- Keeping the 90-degree bend in your right knee, slowly lift your leg straight back and up toward the ceiling. Your max height is right before your back starts to arch, or your hips begin to rotate. Return to the starting position. Repeat all reps on one side, then switch legs.
2/Glute rainbows 
Do: 10-12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.
- Come onto all fours on your mat. Raise your left leg and extend it straight behind you.
- Moving in an arc-motion and keeping your leg level with your body sweep it behind and across your right leg. Then, sweep it back past your starting position to a lateral position with your left hip. Return to centre and repeat for 10-12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.
3/Fire hydrants 
Do: 10-12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.
- Start on all fours with your shoulders over wrists, hips over knees, and toes planted on the floor.
- Keeping your right leg bent to 90 degrees, engage your core and squeeze through your outer right glutes to lift your right knee out to the right, until your upper leg is parallel to floor (or as close as possible).
- Slowly and with control, return leg to starting position. That’s one rep. Perform 10 to 12 reps, then switch sides and repeat.
These moves are amazing for both stability and strengthening, says Keaton Ray, a trainer and co-founder of MovementX physical therapy in Portland, Oregon. They target your gluteus maximus – the largest of your three glutes muscles. They also work your core and shoulder muscles, since your entire body has to remain stable while your leg lifts.
The exercises are especially beneficial for anyone who has a desk job. ‘They help stretch the hip in the opposite direction that we hold it when we sit,’ Ray says, while the movements also counteracts those sedentary hours in a chair. ‘Both of these things will help to improve posture and prevent hip and spine injuries.’
Kidman’s also a fan of running. She previously told Women’s Health US, ‘I come from a marathon running family so that’s been part of my life since I was a little girl. I would get dragged out of bed by my dad… and he would just make us ran laps of the oval.
‘I just put my music on and off I go. I go into the woods and that’s why I love living in Nashville. And in Sydney you’ve got the beach, which is absolutely beautiful to run on.’
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As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director (and a qualified yoga teacher), Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism. She secured her first role at Look Magazine, where her obsession with fitness began and she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!. Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red.
Now, she oversees all fitness content across womenshealthmag.com.uk and the print magazine, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, where we showcase the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise. She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how.
Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.