Dutch Get Ups

The ‘Dutch Get Up’ is my attempt at a humorous play on words. The Turkish Get Up is beginning to get some serious love these days (and we chatted about it here). I’m a huge fan of the movement as it combines movement, posture, strength and endurance. I find sometimes that my ability to single mindedly focus on one or two exercises for two or three months at a time is perhaps not shared by the bulk of the gym going population.

In their fantastic DVD, Kettlebells from the Ground Up 2, Brett Jones, Dr Mark Cheng and Jeff O’Connor dissected and reassembled the TGU. The revelation here is that there is one Windmill ‘hidden’ in the TGU and the possibility to perform a further two Windmills.

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Iron Yoga

The Turkish Get Up (or TGU) is getting a lot of love recently. As is normal within the fitness industry, the ‘mainstream’ is finally catching up to what those of us on the ‘fringe’ have been doing to create success for the last 10 to 100 years.

get-up

Unfortunately it is also being horribly bastardised into some barely recognisable mutant sit up performed with a tiny 4kg kettlebell, also known in our gym as ‘The Earring’ or by my two year old daughter as “Mine! My want two!!!” Look, if a two year old girl wants to walk around the house with one in each hand, then I reckon that they’re probably too light for a grown up.

The TGU is a controlled roll, NOT a sit up! The idea is to pretty much keep your back straight as you ‘roll up’ into a seated position prior to standing up. Think of how you roll out of bed in the morning. Yes there is more than one way to do the TGU, but most of the variations are different expressions of the same principles.

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The Exercise Menu

What do you really want?

Do you want long term results that stick, or do you want to feel better in the instant but pretty much get what you’ve always gotten?

This is the question. The crux. The dichotomy that most people suffer from when they travel along their fitness journey.

Can you delay your gratification? Can you take the long road, work hard, be diligent and be consistent? Or do you need your gratification instantly, at the cost of the long term, to make you feel validated in the here and now, no matter how fleeting?

Can you work away, knowing that in 80% of your workouts you could have done more? Or do you need to end every session as a limp sweating heap on the floor?

You know which path you should take. These are all loaded questions. But why do people take the short cut, the one that burns up any chance of long term success?

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Five Misunderstood Kettlebell Cues

A swing is not a squat

Maximum hip bend, minimal knee. This is the mantra which has led many who will do exactly what you tell them to do to hit themselves in the butt with their own kettlebell. The fitness world now seems to understand that a swing is not a ‘squat-swing’, but the pendulum now seems to have swung to the opposite extent to where no knee bend is allowed.

You are allowed to bend your knees in a swing! But due to individual body mechanics (we are all unique butterflies) no two swings will look identical.

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