Turkish Get-Ups

Turkish Get-Ups are a great full body exercise. They teach alignment, rooting, shoulder stability and seamless coordination while developing overall strength. I believe TGUs were created for Turkish wrestlers to learn to get up from their backs. You may not be doing any Turkish wrestling but you should find this exercise very helpful. A great exercise for strength development and rehab.

The basic premise of a TGU is to get up from laying on your back while holding resistance (a kettlebell) with your arm locked overhead (towards the sky). We break the exercise down into it's various components for the sake of learning and trouble shooting but again, not an exercise to be over thought. In fact in general I prefer to do most of my technical thought pre or post exercise enabling me to focus in a more aware meditative state while actually exercising (although training often requires quick thinking).

Begin the exercise laying on your back. Raise one arm overhead, perpendicular to the ground with the elbow locked. Bend the leg on the same side as the raised arm placing the sole of the foot on the ground. Drive the weight up towards the sky straightening the non-weighted arm against the ground. Transition your feet and legs into a lunge position keeping the weight perpendicular to the ground. At this point your stance should be rooted in a strong lunge position, your posture should be tall and natural with your chest coming slightly forward rooting your arm into the latissimus dorsi muscles letting the weight sit slightly back over the hips. With proper alignment you should feel rooted directly into the ground. From here maintain strong abs while driving up from the legs into a standing position. Reverse the motion by stepping back with a reverse lunge, carefully finding the ground with your knee, then hand, then hip, rolling down until laying on your back again.

1. You may find it difficult to keep your shoulder connected to your body while locking your elbow. Tighten your tricep to lock your elbow. Visualize energy coming up from the elbow into the bell and down from the elbow into your shoulder. Tighten your lat to pull your shoulder in. Feel your lat connect to your obliques and core forming one big muscle. Extend the non-weighted hand to your side at about a 45degree angle. Too close to your body and it doesn't provide any additional leverage. Too far from your body and the arm is disconnected and unstable. Your movements should be smooth and seamless but to break it down think about rolling up your non-weighted tricep to your elbow. Then roll up your forearm to your extended hand.

2. Now you have a leg bent and a leg straight and you are sitting up with the weight overhead and your other arm extended against the floor. The weighted side leg is going to step forward becoming the front leg of a strong lunge position. The opposite leg is repositioned with the knee on the floor becoming the back leg of a strong lunge. This transition should be smooth and strong minimizing excess movement. The weight should remain rooted. The common tendency is to push the weight forward because of lack of mobility in the shoulder making the optimal alignment a difficult position to maintain. Understand the difference of difficulty from improper technique and difficulty from proper training. Technically, if you can do something with bad technique, you can do something even more powerfully with good technique. That is good news. Continue active release and mobility exercises and millimeter by millimeter strive for better alignment in your practice.

3. Keep your balance, stay rooted and drive up from your legs. Bring your feet together and stand up tall with your feet and shoulder rooted, elbow locked, weight over the hips, chest slightly forward, legs locked. Reverse the motion by stepping back confidently and finding the ground with your knee. Keep your shoulder rooted and reach down to find the ground with your non-weighted hand. Shift the rear lunge leg in front of you as you take a seat so you can lay down to finish the motion. Roll down the non-weighted arm using your core muscles for control.

Finer points:

1. Protect your shoulder as you bring the bell from your side to the prone rack position. Roll towards the bell and use two hands to pull it into the rack.

2. This exercise is very much about alignment. Even the lightest weight I can only hold in front front of me for so long. When the weight falls off it's root line small muscles start overworking and joints start fatiguing and disconnecting. Keep your peripheral vision on the weight and make sure it stays rooted. Instead of feeling the weight in my hand, I send the energy to my lats, hips, legs and feet.

3. This exercise is all about transitions. Take the time to practice them making them nice and smooth.

4. The exercise is much less exhausting when you have the stability of rooting through your feet. By beginning with this strong foundation much of the other alignment issues will self correct.

5. You are only as strong as your weakest link. Make sure the bell is positioned low in the palm. People tend to hold the bell at the base of the fingers which bends the wrist back throwing off the bodies alignment.

6. Although holding your breath may give you more strength on certain powerlifts, TGU repetitions take too long for breath holding. Also be careful to avoid the pendulum tension and relaxation curve of deep breathing. Breath from your diaphragm but make sure your breathing is smooth. This will make 5 sets of 5 repetitions seem easier than one repetition with improper breathing.

7. You don't have to be too linear. There are a lot of angles and levers in this motion. If you come straight up you will be developing good absolute strength. Good thing to practice when your KB is feeling light and you want to work up to a heavier weight. But if you want to make a heavy weight feel lighter, use the available levers to cut the angles to your advantage. Use your obliques and roll to your side as you smoothly get up. This is a more natural way to attempt getting up, especially in combat sports (See also: life) where the resistance is active and significant.

Extra safety points:

1. Watch your footing. Work bare foot or with shoes that have a solid sole. A slightly cushy mat may force you to use your stabilizer muscles a bit more but the exercise will be more difficult with added dangers of acute mishap or prolonged overuse injuries. Make sure floors aren't too slippery and make sure not to trip on your mat. Mat, soft surface or knee pad is used to protect the knee during the lunge.

2. Keep at least your peripheral vision on the bell and stay focused. Don't look into the sun =)

3. Have confidence in your lift. Some exercises, like the deadlift for instance, if I maintain proper form, I can attempt a lift beyond my Personal Record and worse comes to worst the weight simply doesn't move. With TGUs if the weight is too heavy for me, I potentially drop it on my face. Therefore I don't attempt this exercise with maximum weights. Use your practice and judgment to be 100% confident in the TGU you're performing (See also: Bailout gracefully or if you're going to be stupid, you better be tough).