A Speed Bump in the TGU
Gray Cook discusses the Turkish Get Up and a speed bump introduced
in Kettlebells From the Ground Up, making the move harder and
helping you use the TGU as a screening and corrective tool.
Hi, this is Gray Cook doing a pod cast on some questions, some controversy
and quite a bit of Internet traffic about a move that is older than us all.
The Turkish Get Up has created quite a lot of material for us to study, debate,
compare and contrast at different styles. Recently, a lot of questions have
come up about a way that Brett Jones and I along with Mark Cheng presented
the Turkish Get Up and a project that we did called, “Kalos Sthenos” which
means the calisthenic or kettlebells from the ground up. We took it back to
history and basically said that originally calisthenics were beautiful moves
with weighted implements like
Indian clubs or kettlebells in
your hands. All we were going
to do was to break the Turkish
Get Up down at each step and
just look at some corrective
things that could be done
because the Turkish Get Up in a
nutshell gives us opportunities
to see a lot of the same
mobility, stability inefficiency
that we see in poor movement
screening.
As Brett and I started looking at different things we could do to help sort of
ease the body into each position in the most correct manner for the Turkish
Get Up, we started talking with Mark Cheng, Pavel and some of the people at
Dragon Door. Mark showed us one thing that he had demonstrated previously
to Pavel which was in the very center of the Turkish Get Up you have a choice
of hovering or you can do a plank up. That plank is what is creating a lot of the
controversy. That plank is basically one leg bent. Imagine the right kettlebell
overhead. One leg is bent. The right leg is bent. The left leg is out straight. You
lift up your body and basically demonstrate full hip extension.
Now this was done a long time ago when Mike Boyle featured it in his book
and called it the ‘Cook-Hip Bridge’ that was basically a single leg bridge or a
bridge maneuver. The reason we like bridging and put it into a lot of athletic
development routines is because it is one of the few challenges where we get
to put the glute against the hip flexor and your hip extends as opposed to your
low back. But many athletes, the quad-dominant athlete or the person who is
over trained in the hip flexor, will gave us back extension instead of hip
extension. As we were looking at ways to demonstrate the Turkish Get Up to
both populations that have been using the Turkish Get Up and may could be
using it better or populations that had no exposure to the Turkish Get Up, we
decided to start the Turkish
Get Up with this 3 point
bridge. Now, that has
created controversy. It is
controversy because that
move is probably hard. If
you are strong, you can get
through a Get Up without
doing that move but that
move is an intentional speed
bump. I appreciate Mark
Cheng bringing that move to us. Brett and I, believe it or not, debated behind
the scenes whether to do that or not. But since we were holding the Turkish
Get Up like a movement screen and since it is actually possible to do a pretty
respectable Get Up and still have a positive Thomas test or Faber test which is
going to tell me that you do not open your hips completely, we thought, ‘You
know what, this little 3 point bridge is a great speed bump’. It is a great way to
get people who are using the Get Up as corrective strategy.
Listen, it has to be a screen before it can become corrective strategy because
the Get Up has to show you a problem before you have the insight to correct
that problem. So by imposing this extra amount of hip extension, because
there are only a few places where you really have to have a lot of hip
extension in the Get Up, we imposed this little extra hip extension to simply
slow you down. Think about it, what is the definition of a speed bump? To
slow you down and make you pay attention. Since we have the benefit of
movement screens dating all the way back to 1996 and 1997, we see
unbelievably strong, well-conditioned people who do not get caught with
their tight hip flexors, their IT band dominance and their quadriceps
dominance. So we thought, ‘Well, hey, we are not going to dishonor the Get Up
because I have a feeling that when the Get Up was first introduced, and by the
way we have seen the Get Up in many variations. We have seen the little triple
point plank. We have seen a deep squat version of the Get Up. We have seen
the Get Up where you do the hover move. I could debate and promote each
one of those but you have to realize that the first populations that did the
Turkish Get Up, I think, moved better than we did. I honestly think they
moved better than we did.
A couple of weeks ago, we spent time with Ed Thomas and looked at some of
the things that people were doing in gyms in the early 1900’s. I did not see the
movement deficiencies. When you see a room of 45 people performing a full
deep squat in unison and doing full range of motion for the shoulder in Indian
clubs in unison, climbing ropes, pegboards, doing calisthenics and body
weight moves, it is pretty easy
to see how these people would
have passed and probably
laughed at the movement
screen that gives so many of us
difficulty today. So in response
to that, I have always tried to
make my work point us at a
certain degree of quality. If I
can bring our attention to some
of our movement deficiencies,
we know that everybody can do
Get Ups. We also know that less
and less people every year are doing Get Ups with a deep squat because only
about 20% of the population has a respectable deep squat anymore. If they do
the deep squat version of the Turkish Get Up, it is going to be with a
significant amount of pronation and valgus collapse.
Now, it is funny because I think a lot of people have brought to my attention
that there are a lot of books and videos that do not show the Get Up the way
that we showed it, specifically, in the Perform Better workshops. Anthony
DiLuglio teaches the Get Up different than I do. I have encouraged Anthony
not to just watch the move but look at why we put it in there and hopefully he
will. But the big point here is that it is almost like two fleas arguing over who
owns the dog. I do not think the dog really cares. What we have to do is say,
‘Okay, are we letting people through the Get Up or are we missing an
opportunity to catch them at a mistake that could hurt them in a later on or
more extravagant kettlebell move.
Here is my point. The Turkish Get Up is one of the few full-body movements
that we do with a kettlebell. It honors mobility and stability at its finest. It also
fits the criteria of our movement screening where it looks at the left and right
side of functional movement differently meaning that you are going to do a
right Get Up and you are going to do a left Get Up. They should complement
each other. You should not be that much better on one side than another
because it is not about right-hand dominance or strength. This is all mobility
and stability. It is not pressing. It is not squatting. It is basically moving in all
three planes with respectable proprioception, mobility and stability. By
imposing a speed bump in that Get Up, we take an already slow movement
and make you slow it down even more. We impose that speed bump to send
you to a corrective strategy and some pretty neat stretching that will basically
enhance the Get Up. Once you are competent with the Get Up, once you feel
like these corrective strategies have helped you, once you feel like you are
moving symmetrically on the left and right and the basic little Get Up that we
showed you does not present difficulty, do whatever Get Up you want.
Do it with a deep squat. Do it with a
hover. But when I start looking at the
anatomy trains and functional anatomy
and I am trying to pack a shoulder, you
must realize that the lack on the left
becomes the glute on the right. If you
use the glute on the right, you will
stabilize the shoulder on the left. It will
be difficult for some people because
now we have a forced couple between
Janda’s crossed syndrome - a tight psoas
fighting a glute that could be better. So a
lot of people want to skip that stage that
we introduced in the Get Up simply
because they do not like it. It puts them
up against the problem. We all know that the strong guys hit the weight room
and the flexible guys hit the yoga mats. If we could just get the strength guys
on the yoga mats a little bit and the yoga guys in the weight room a little bit,
everybody would move better.
So the purpose and nature of coaching is to hold you up against your weakest
links, to expose you to your weakness and to allow you to rise to a challenge
so that your opponent or life does not find your weakness. When we took on
this little study with the Turkish Get Up, we agreed on all six positions with
everybody else. We modified one of the seven positions. It has created
controversy and it is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog. If you are
making comments on that 3 point bridge and you have not reviewed the
program that we put forth where we mentioned the various options but stuck
to our guns and said, ‘Listen, use this as a corrective strategy. Use this as a
speed bump to increase your awareness that may be you cannot clear your
hips as good as you thought’. So instead of doing a bunch of hip lifts or single
leg bridges to reduce the dynamic activity of your psoas and hip extension, do
a Get Up this way. If it basically catches you at this stage own the stage. That is
one thing Brett and I stated all through the video and Mark says all through
the complementary workbook that we gave. The Get Up is not about seeing
how quick you can get up and with how much weight. It is about honoring
each stage of the exercise. We did make a modification. I do not know if any
one historical picture, black and white photo or story about the Get Up
surmounts anyone else’s. We all like to call on history. I have seen pictures of
all types of Get Ups. When I had to pick one that would basically clean up your
movement, whether I am there coaching you or not, I stick by what we put in
Kettlebells From the Ground Up.
I hope you enjoy it. I hope this helped. I hope that we can quit arguing over
who owns the dog.
This is Gray Cook. Thanks!