Objective To explore the motor coordination characteristics of the attack leg of the athletes under scoring actions in the front roundhouse kick of competitive taekwondo, and provide a theoretical basis for coaches o formulate precise training strategies in stages and segments so as to enhance the efficiency and success rate of the athletes’movements. Methods Kinematic data and surface electromyography signals were collected from 15 elite Taekwondo athletes during different phases of the front roundhouse kick. The continuous relative phase (CRP) method was used to calculate the joint coordination and variability of continuous relative phase (VCRP), while non-negative matrix factorization and k-means clustering were used to analyze muscle synergy characteristics. Results The coupling of the neural launch phase was dominated by knee-ankle coupling in coronal axis and hip-ankle coupling in sagittal axis. The coupling of the kicking phase was dominated by hipknee, hip-ankle in coronal axis, and knee-ankle coupling in vertical axis. The coupling of the recovery phase was dominated by hip-knee, hip-ankle coupling in coronal axis, and knee-ankle coupling in sagittal axis. These coupling relationships remained relatively stable around 0 rad. Approximately 80. 0% VCRP remained stableacross all phases, with minor fluctuations occurring at phase transitions. A total of 4, 5, and 4 muscle synergy clusters were identified in neural launch, kicking, recovery phases, respectively. There were significant differences in the mean gap values among phases (P<0. 001). However, there were no significant differences in the mean sparsity values among phases (P>0. 05). Some muscle synergies were shared across phases, while others differentiated to form phase-specific coordination patterns. Conclusions Joint coordination in each phase exhibited 1 - 3 primary stable patterns with flexibility during transitions. Muscle coordination was dynamically adjusted throughout the motion, and a general muscle synergy pattern functioned consistently across different phases, whereas a differentiated muscle synergy pattern fulfilled the phase-specific functional demands. The neural launch and kicking phases should be focused on during training, with the emphasis on controling over critical points to optimize performance.