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Kettlebell Exercises for Bullet Proof Shoulders: Part III
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Why the Turkish Get Up is Easier than a Single Bell Clean
Hello friends and internet randoms, Happy Holidays! I hope everyone enjoyed a very lovely Christmas/Hanukkah/Holiday of your Choosing, and that you all continue to remain excited for a brand new year. I, for one, am pretty stoked, having finally accomplished my most significant goal for 2019 - to become a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Coincidentally, the NSCA just lost an ongoing lawsuit with CrossFit after publishing a biased study in their Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research which attributed incidences of overuse and injury to crossfit-style training, “despite deliberate periodization” and “supervision by certified fitness professionals”. Of course, CrossFit disputed this claim, and the study was the JSCR’s most viewed of all time - which I’m sure was not a coincidence. You can read more about the story here.
I maintain that both organizations contribute considerable value to the world of exercise, and indeed, they are now my most useful certifications when it comes to legitimizing myself as a trainer (as in, the hottest prerequisites for getting hired). Unfortunately, the NSCA and CrossFit are absolutely at war, and I get the feeling that many fitness professionals such as myself do their best to carefully toe the line of supporting both old and new school thinking. The NSCA represents the oldest-standing gold standard of collegiate level strength and conditioning, while CrossFit represents the newest approach, supported by the masses, infiltrating gyms and weight rooms everywhere. All this to say … Exactly one week ago, I sat in front of a computer at a testing center for a little over four hours and steadily lost my ability to see and think straight (that’s the real test though, isn’t it?). Thankfully, my brain somehow pulled through after months of studying, because I passed both sections with good marks - just in time to enjoy Christmas without my massive pile of flashcards! That said, I’m truly excited to pick right back up again with continuing ed in January, starting with finishing The Complete Shoulder and Hip Blueprint by Dean Somerset and Tony Gentilcore. (I wish I had realized earlier in life that when you actually enjoy what you’re learning about, learning is far from the most dreadful thing in the world.)
Abrupt Change Of Topic ( because this is my blog and I can do what I want :) )
I’m here today to write to you about kettlebell’s fanciest movement, the Turkish Get Up! Legend has it (aka, the story that the master instructor relayed at my RKC certification course) that this movement was the prerequisite for learning powerlifting and olympic lifting in eastern European countries - if you could not perform a TGU on both sides with a very heavy weight (I want to say it was one hundred pounds, but I may be wrong here), you could not begin with a barbell. It weeded out the weak, unfocused and uncoordinated, doubly serving as an automatic method of injury prevention.
While it has absolutely gained mainstream popularity with nearly direct proportionality to the rise of the kettlebell itself, performing a get up will draw stares from nearby gym goers nine times out of ten, should you choose to perform it outside of a kettlebell-centric environment. For starters, you begin the movement in the fetal position, which for all intents and purposes, appears to be the very opposite of exercise. (If you’ve ever taken CPR, you know that this is the ‘recovery position’.) Secondly, it’s long and technical - you can break the get up down into six or more parts just on the way up, which is exactly one half of a single rep (because what goes up must come down).
All of this said, I believe that the TGU is less complicated and arguably easier to perform than a cleanly-executed single bell clean. Wait, really? (this is your brain speaking, did I get it right?) What, why?
Here’s my line of thinking: While the TGU has several steps, it is designed to be done slowly and methodically. You have time to own each position, each of which is something you have done before - roll up, bridge, tripod, hinge, forward lunge, stand, backward lunge, tripod, hinge, roll down. The only difference is that you are actively stabilizing a heavy weight overhead (this is the hard part, of course). Once the initial work of memorizing each position is done (which follows a natural and rather intuitive flow, although I’d imagine some would argue with me on that), the bulk of the work remains in practicing fluidity and limb placement in transitions.
A clean, however, occurs in an instant- during which you must create ballistic force, react immediately with sufficient rigidity to resist transverse (rotational) force, and smoothly tame the arc of the bell, guiding it into the rack position without allowing the hips to swivel or weight to slam on the forearm. Just like a barbell clean, the inherent complexity of creating and controlling force in a matter of one or two seconds can and does take years to perfect. So, while I’m not saying that the TGU doesn’t take time to master, I am saying that it is a bit easier to gain technical proficiency of a slow, controlled movement than a ballistic, power-based one. Hopefully, if anything, this makes you more inclined to incorporate it as a regular warm up option for shoulder-intensive workouts, if you have avoided it in the past.
I will not go into a ton of detail about all the steps of the get up here, because goodness knows this has been done by people more knowledgeable by myself - and far be it from me to waste my time reinventing the wheel. Rather, I will quickly touch on a few points of greatest concern that are most often overlooked when I see the movement being taught or performed. If you are looking for a more in depth overview than my awkward (sorry, still learning how to talk to a camera) video below, here is an article from StrongFirst which provide’s a clinician’s perspective, and here is a step-by-step break down of the movement from Bar Bend.
1) When you switch sides, stay in the fetal position and halo the bell over your head with both hands (trace a circle on the floor with the bell) while you transition to the fetal position on your opposite side, at which point you will be in the correct position to begin your next rep. This method of transition to switch sides prevents you from bringing the bell directly over and across your chest, which would be the slightly less heavy equivalent of performing a heavy set of bench press without a spotter or safety arms. The weight could end up resting right on your sternum, without a means to get it off. Sure, when you’re learning, the bell is nice and light, but it’s a good habit to get into for when you become more proficient and capable with heavier bells.
2) Hinge your hips back toward your heel and trace your unweighted hand down your leg during the downward part of the movement, as you transition from the lunge to the tripod. These steps do two things: a) allow you to simultaneously align the bell under your center of gravity (hips) and b) find your positioning on the floor without your eyes leaving the bell, which is always a priority.
3) It’s a Press Up and Across, not a Sit Up. As you press onto your forearm, you weight should shift up and across, from shoulder to shoulder, while maintaining a long spine. This diagonal transference of force allows you to lift far more weight than if you were to sit straight up. Just try it, you’ll see what I mean.
