This month at the studio we are focusing on the Turkish get up for our lift of the month. We plan on getting our clients up to a heavy one rep max, so most of our programming is designed to increase the level of our turkish get up strength. Today, I wanted to cover the basic of this lift and show you a really unique way to get good at the get up by spending, what we call here in our lifting community, “time under tension”.
But first, let’s get to the basics.
Nothing says “full body exertion” like the Turkish Get Up. Though the getup is considered a basic kettlebell lift, it can be a bit tricky in terms of learning the movement patterns you need to perform the lift properly. Step one when learning this lift is to practice what we call the “naked get up” (but seriously keep your clothes on here;) ). Moving yourself through the check points” so-to-speak with the getup without using a weight is essential to your understanding of how to move through this lift well. The video below will show you the major areas of concern in the getup and I will walk you through how to move through this lift properly without a weight first.
Once you iron out your movement patterns, it’s time to practice tension in this lift. Using one of your tennis shoes (yes, you read that right), you will position the shoe on top of your fist and move through the exact same check points as we did with our naked get up. What this drill does is teach your body how to sustain enough tension to balance a shoe without it falling off your fist. Once you are able to perform this shoe get up on both your right and left arm you are ready to stabilize a weight. In the next video, I demonstrate a proper shoe getup.
Ready for your first get up? Let’s get to it. Generally speaking, I tell new lifters to train with a light to medium weight to get started. Men, start with a 16-20kg and ladies, 8kg-12kg. We aren’t training for a huge max lift at the moment, so go easy on yourself. Using everything we just covered from technique wise, let’s get you to your first get up. In the video below, I demonstrate a proper get up on both arms form the ground up and back down. Pay special attention to the starting position and how o transition to your next lift. Trust me, this is super important for your own safety.
If you’re ready to do a particularly challenging get up routine, do the get up press. This workout will have you spending lots ot time under the tension necessary to sustain different presses at different angles while moving through your get up. Set your timer for 10 minutes (trust me that’s all you need) and perform the following drill in the video below.
You know what they say? “You got to get up to get down! ” 😉 Thanks for visitng the blog today folks! Until next time. . .
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