DS is 23 months and is very physical in general (aren't all toddlers?) but one particular favourite of his at the moment is kicking (me mainly, and our cat) or standing/lying behind me on a bed/chair etc trying to push me off with his feet saying "PUUUUUUUSH" 
It doesn't seem to be aggressive or related to frustration etc, he seems to kick when he is excited or having a "mad half hour" but at the same time, it's not appropriate, especially when we are lying in bed etc as he doubles his body completely over and manages to kick me in the face 
And he might not be that strong now, but he will be soon.
At the moment when he gets into a kicky sort of mood, I just stand up and go and do something else either with him or by myself (leaving him to play on his own) and I tell him that kicking is rough and I don't like it, or to be gentle, or that we don't kick people, we only kick footballs. (He knows what "rough" means as I successfully stopped him hitting this way)
If it's at bedtime I don't change the activity, I usually just pin his legs down with my leg until he calms down (I still feed him to sleep most nights).
But this has been going on for months now and he doesn't seem to be getting bored of it. We play football etc in the garden and I try to get out most days although with fewer groups etc running in the school holidays I haven't been getting out as much as I would like. So hopefully things will improve now that the groups are back on and we can get out more, but I just wondered if anyone had any suggestions in the meantime? I don't want to do naughty step/reward charts etc as that's not really my style, hence the UP/AP etc in the thread title :)