Turkish get-ups

[Scrofula]

Does anyone have experience with heavy TGUs as an assistance exercise? How have they affected your other lifts? I did a search, and while everybody seems to have something good to say about the exercise, most people seem to stick to pretty light weights and low reps (3ish a side). I saw one post from somebody who can do a 100lb TGU, but that seems to be unusual.

I was playing around with them tonight, and did a few singles at a not-too-challenging weight. They were fun, but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to do them. In particular, I'm wondering if heavy TGUs are likely to help my pressing lifts, which currently suck. My current upper body accessory work consists of lots of weighted chins, and some light DB presses and BB curls.

I know TGUs have a reputation for being good for injury prevention, but this is probably balanced by the risk of dropping a dumbbell on my face.

[FKYT]

It's funny you should mention, but I just tried out TGUs for the first time the other night. I figured I'd start with a "light" weight, so I attempted a 45 lb DB. Well that was a non-starter, haha. They're harder than they look. Doing one with 100 lbs seems insane. I'd be curious to hear from people who have done them regularly for a while.

[melody]

They're fun. Maybe I'll do some today, it's been a while.

[Charlie Davies]

I do very light TGUs as a fun warmup, and because Dan John's book said I should do them. No idea if they actually help anything, but I feel them in my obliques.

[Scrofula]

I used to do them. Think my best was 105 or so with a barbell, which I must admit being easier than a DB which is easier than a KB. Best KB TGU was 70lb.

That is pretty cool. I was messing around with a dumbbell; I assumed a barbell would be harder because of the balance issues. If they didn't help your press, did you notice any other benefits?

I think I'll throw in a few TGUs once a week in between chin up sets, mostly just for fun. May not help my pressing much, but at least the floor press at the beginning is a little extra volume.

[Kyle Schuant]

I do them often as do some of my clients as I'm a kettlebell coach. I don't think going heavy offers much more benefit than going light. Their benefit is in promoting trunk and shoulder stability, and hip and shoulder mobility. For this a lightish weight is enough, it's about technique more than sheer grunt. For sheer grunt we have barbells.

[veryhrm]

I did them for a couple of weeks w/ some KBs. Like other people here i'd say they were kind of fun/cool, but i don't know what, if anything, they did for me. One cool application (though i'll have to get way stronger) is to do the TGU w/ a girl thing. That's prob. a neat demo.

I do them often as do some of my clients as I'm a kettlebell coach. I don't think going heavy offers much more benefit than going light. Their benefit is in promoting trunk and shoulder stability, and hip and shoulder mobility. For this a lightish weight is enough, it's about technique more than sheer grunt. For sheer grunt we have barbells.

I don't get you sometimes (ok... most of the time). They're certainly harder to do w/ heavier weights. Even if they don't build strength and they're just good at integrating/expressing strength ( like Rip says about cleans) you still presumably want to increase the weight when you can, no ?

[Kyle Schuant]

Of course they're harder to do with heavier weights. But that's not their purpose.

Certainly you should increase the weight when you can do so with good form. This greatly limits the progress of the weights, though. Remember that KB go in 4kg jumps and all but the two-handed swing and goblet squat are single-handed movements, just imagine having nothing smaller than 5kg plates for your barbell when you press or snatch - you really have to own that weight before increasing it.

The kettlebell is not a tool for pure strength. It's a tool for a combination of strength, endurance and mobility. You know how you feel when you see some crossfitter doing 100 95lb snatches for time? That's how I feel when I see someone doing a TGU with 40+kg. It's just messy and is not understanding the purpose of the movement.

The main issue is that there's a point of diminishing returns. Just as a shotputter will throw further with a 200kg squat than they did with a 100kg squat, but not much further with a 300kg squat, so too with kettlebell exercises. The barbell-trained strength-oriented trainee will feel more solid in their squats and presses with a 20kg TGU than they did with an 8kg TGU, but not much better off with a 32kg TGU.

[tomskarda]

They are primarily used for injury prevention. It seems to train isometric stability in torsion (i.e. twist) involving the trunk/spine. From this standpoint doing a linear progression with them would be a little high risk and probably not worth it. The body in general does not like progressively loaded movements involving the twisting of the trunk in my limited experience.

Pratically speaking they appear to do a good job of integrating alot of the small stability muscularture in the upper body that doesn't get a whole lot of work from the big five symetrically loaded movements.

[knorm]

Fantastic AB exercise. Can't really comment on them for shoulder stability and prehab or whatever since I don't have issues with them at the moment but they are extremely humbling. I wouldn't use them as a warm-up since holding them in the isometric position would pre-fatigue the stabilizing muscles of your shoulder girdle. Pre-fatigue is a bad idea if you want to go heavy, it increases the chance of injury, can fuck up your form, and force your to use less weight.