I have dropped and added many exercises over the years. Some are more odd than others and some are brutally simple yet effective.
It took me many years to incorporate kettlebells into our training programs and not because I thought they were useless…I just thought I knew everything. And…I was not going to let the “kettlebell people” tell me how to train.
Fast forward to now and I absolutely love Kettlebells. We use them for everything. Deadlifts, RDL variants, overhead presses and loaded carries.
But! There is one exercise that everyone hates but I do believe delivers a great training effect.
Drum roll….
The Get Up!
Or better known as the Turkish Get Up.
Get Up To Get Down
I noticed a glaring hole in my older demographic at the gym. When trying to get up from any ground based exercise, it was very difficult for them to get up and off the ground.
There is a correlation between longevity and the ability to get one’s self off the ground. Especially as we age, we lose strength and the chances of falling significantly increases. Instead of spending hours on the floor, we need to have the ability to get up!
To solve this problem, we started teaching the Get Up and its many variants.
For our older population, we start with body weight and really coach control and cadence of the exercise.
After some time, we were able to load this for some of our clients and low and behold, people were able to get up from the ground a lot easier!
Where Do They Go?
If you are using a lighter load, you can throw them at the end of your warm up sequence.
If you are going to load these, I would make them your first primary exercise for the day. I like to pair heavy Get Ups with a horizontal pulling exercise of sorts.
We will then move on to more pressing if the program is designed that way.
There Is A Lot Going On Here
The get up and its variants have a lot of moving parts. Your rotator cuff fires to help with control of that ball and socket. Strict control of the scapula is important as well. This unique cross body patterning activates the opposite hip and core. Not to mention your serratus is activated here and plays a large part in overall stability.
Nerd session done…
Big takeaway is that every step of the Get Up must be mastered before you can load these. Take your time and do not rush through them.
Now at the gym, a large portion of our population knows how to perform this exercise well!
Do you have a longing to perform Get Ups?
Look no further and schedule a consultation with us!
