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.
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.
The TGU can be done as a movement screen, as a warm up, as an endurance exercise, as a strength movement, it is a multi-purpose one stop shop for pretty much every physical quality with the exception of power/speed (but you’d better believe that the slow grinding strength and mobility that it helps develop will support whatever movements you choose to develop power in!).
I like to cycle though phases of focusing on the TGU as a strength lift. For combat/contact sports and obstacle course racing it helps develop a robust bulletproof body that has strength in those ‘weird angles/positions’ that you can find yourself in. When I’m not focusing on it as a lift, I like to include it in my warm up or on easy days as a form of ‘Iron Yoga’.
When I first started teaching Kettebell classes at the local University, one of the students (a teacher herself) said that the TGU looked like a ‘Yoga move done with a weight’. And so I like to refer to the TGU, the Windmill and the Bent Press as ‘Iron Yoga’ when done with a relative light to medium weight.
The name Iron Yoga allows me to ‘trick’ some of my clients (shhh, it’s a secret). For the huge hulking Rugby and Judo players they often don’t want to do stretching because it’s too girly. For some of my female clients they want to stretch and run but not to lift. The Iron Yoga family gives me a way to bring what they need into what they like. The Iron Yoga movements, seem to have a ‘toughening’ quality to them. In that if performed well, they make you hard to break or injure.
Iron Yoga can become the secret sauce (along with Goblet Squats) that can turn a mediocre training plan into a success. But like much like the Yoga tradition, you don’t want just anyone to be teaching you this, as it is so easily done poorly. Do your research and find a recognised teacher!
Be fit, be strong, be happy!