Best Exercises You're not doing - the Turkish Get Up

Aside from helping you cut a steely core, the TGU increases stability and upper body control – powering you to a stronger overhead press.

Why muscle up the motivation to train if your workout doesn’t benefit your body outside the gym? Trust us, there’s little worth in size without strength. This month master the Turkish Get-Up: it’s the best multi-tasking exercise you’re not doing.

As one of the best functional movements – exercises that emulate real life tasks like lugging luggage or shifting heavy furniture – the TGU hits all the major muscle groups. In one rep you test hip and shoulder mobility, core strength, rotational control and scapular stability. Get it wrong and you risk coming face to face with heavy metal and an awkward conversation with your boss, explaining away a black eye.

However, don’t be put off by this or retro images of strongmen doing the move with 100lbs or more. This exercise is as much for the beginner as it is for those with brawn.

You can use the getup to get ahead in your training one of two ways. The first, in warmups. Add light load TGUs as a prequel to overhead lifting. They’re a nice way to build base strength and experience load in the overhead position. That’s because, rather than press the load up, you sneak the body underneath the weight – a little like building a pyramid underneath the kettlebell.

Alternatively, stop being a planker and reach for a heavy kettlebell to hammer your core at the end of the workout.

Like the deadlift, there’s few people that won’t get bang for their butt from this move. So what are you waiting for?

You need:

A kettlebell, barbell, sandbag or dumbbell all work. Training at home? Practice with bodyweight or a 2ltr water bottle.

Master the move:

1. Lying on the floor, safely move your weight of choice into a locked out position inline with your right shoulder. Slide your right foot in towards your bum until it’s next to your left knee.
2. Drive up onto the elbow of the left arm by firing the abs and pushing off the opposite leg – think of punching the weight to the ceiling or ‘crunch and punch’.
3. Drive your hips to the ceiling while engaging the glutes and abs to create enough space to slide your leg beneath you into a half kneel position.
4. Step up from half kneel to standing keeping the weight above your head and core tight. Breathe.
5. You’re not done yet. Reverse steps 1 to 4 to get back to the floor.

Staying in Your Lane

Having worked in sports, health, and fitness since starting my undergrad sports science degree in 1997, (when I remember not picking up my new University email address for a whole term thinking this interweb thing would never catch on...) its fair to say I've been around the block a few times when it comes to exercise and seen a fair few fads come and go

OK I wasn't around for this one, and also: WFT?

It has also given me plenty of time and experience to figure out what my 'niche' is.  For me that has been looking to bridge the gap between clinical rehab and performance.

Building a niche is, in my opinion, one of the most important things a health and fitness professional can do in ensuring longevity in an industry renowned for chewing up and spitting out willing and enthusiastic newbies.  Those have been led to believe that a world of instagram selfies is the key to the 'four hour working week' and being a 'six figure trainer' (spoiler alert, its not).

Which brings me on to the point of this post.






Staying in your lane, or rather, within your scope of practise is often overlooked as being one of the most effective ways to build credibility, integrity and a full client book.   Conversely many people feel the need to try to cover all bases for their clients.  No one, I repeat, no one is an expert at everything - to truly become an expert Malcolm Gladwell would have us believe that 10,000 hours of practise is required.  In coaching terms thats 100 sessions a month, every month, for over 8 years - and that would just make us an expert at 'coaching'  when you have found your niche, be that nutrition, hypertrophy, S&C, or in my case biomechanics, you're looking at 10,000 hours of practise in that field  to consider yourself an expert.


Keeping all of that in mind we can hopefully start to see the importance of building an effective referral network of other experts that compliment your own skill set.

This collaboration continuum illustration was borrowed from a Postural Restoration Insitute seminar, and is one I have incorporated into internal training at the facility in which I am based.
Unfortunately, due to either a lack of understanding, or just plain and simple egotism, the health and fitness industry tends to exist towards the left hand side of this diagram.  if we wish to encourage movement towards the right hand side - we need to have an appreciation (and therefore an understanding!) of our scopes of practise....

Now I will caveat this somewhat by clarifying that a 'greying of the edges' of an individuals scope of practise is in many ways inevitable when considering a long career of a lifelong learner - and that particular areas of focus and emphasis can tend to change over time.  However, even with such individuals, there must still be a commitment to actually learning their new skill!

Once we understand our own scope of practise - and where it ends - we can and should begin to build a professional network of individuals who excel in areas that we do not.  That way we can continue to do the right thing by our clients and refer them to people we know and trust to best help them - trust me on this one, if your client has an issue outside of your scope, and you refer them to someone who is better positioned to help - you have a client for life.

The flip side of the 'if in doubt refer it out' mantra - is of course 'if you are not trained, qualified, or insured to do it - find someone who is!'.

In my own area of dealing with a majority of post rehab clients,  both athletes and general population, I consider myself highly fortunate to have a solid working relationship with arguably the top sports physiotherapist in Europe.  The reason that it works well is because of mutual trust, and an understanding that we have skill sets that are complimentary, but different.  I do not put my hands on any clients or patients, I do not stretch or force range, I make no attempt to change any physical structure.  My job is to coach people to move well, and to get them stronger - and to select the most appropriate movement for that individual at that time.  In short, we stay out of each others lanes.

One thing I cannot stand is the trainer who thinks he's a physiotherapist because he's watched a few videos on youtube, or sat in on a treatment session or two.  Just as someone wouldn't trust me to fly a plane they were in because I've watched Top Gun a few times,  they shouldn't trust a person with their physical health who is not educated, qualified, and insured to look after it!


Of course this argument works two ways, and we also shouldn't  see manual therapists with no coaching experience taking people through loaded strength training protocols.  However,  as the barrier to entry to become a chartered physiotherapist is very high and requires several years of study and continual further education - we do tend to see a higher level of professional integrity in this field than in the world of personal training  - where the barrier to entry is essentially non existent.

If you are one of those professionals looking to expand your scope of practise - and get more hands on involvement with clarinets (patients), there are a whole heap of further education training resources and certifications out there that are available to personal trainers and strength coaches who want to get more hands on.  Sports Massage, ART, IASTM even acupuncture and dry needling are all available to non medically qualified individuals.  Personally I have been pursuing higher education through the Academy of Applied Movement Neurology and the Postural Restoration Insitute, and found both systems provided me with a great range of tools to help get people moving better.  However, NEITHER  qualify me to manually change the structure of a persons tissue, so I don't ever do that.  I reach out to a person in my network who I trust and collaborate with him to get that done.

In short:  Don't be a Cowboy  <-- unless you are, in fact, a cowboy (which is infinitely more cool than being a PT anyway)

Face Pulls

One of my go-to exercises for shoulder health, correcting a number of postural imbalances, and all round ‘good hygeine’ as a client of mine calls it – is the face pull.  It's safe to say if I have been writing programs for someone, they will have become pretty familiar with face pull variations.

Jim Carrey, an outstanding face puller

In my opinion the face pull is a ‘must do’ movement for pretty much everyone, in its simplest form it encourages a posterior tilt of the scapulae, increases the sub acromial space, and encourages activation of both the lower traps, and the posterior cuff – whats not to love!?

 The sub acromial space - there is rarely a lot of it...

A certain amount of 'impingement' is inevitable, however, poor shoulder mechanics, less than optimal alignment at the scapula thoracic joint, and poor centration of the glenohumeral joint can all contribute to decreased sub acromial space, increased impingement, and hurty shoulder

To set up for the standard face pull there are a couple of key cues to remember

- cable column should be set to head height

- adopt a split stance to minimise the chance of achieving the movement through excessive lumbar extension (lock this down even further with a good squeeze of the glute on the back leg)

- pull the lower ribs down and get a solid brace through the anterior core

- pull the rope grip towards your face (towards, not into - I have seen it done trust me).

- ensure the shoulders stay away from the ears, and the elbows draw up higher than the shoulders

- smile

https://youtu.be/nQXjdUNt6nw



I like to program face pulls for medium to high reps - so anywhere in the 12-25 bracket.  I'm rarely looking to develop a great deal of force production in a movement like this, its much more about creating good movement and 'feeling' the exercise.  As for where they sit in a program, this is usually a C2 and acts as a 'filler' between working sets on secondary assistance movements, I also occasionally use it as a D2 to round off an upper body lifting session thats had a lot of heavy pressing, or even as part of the dynamic warm up for those folks 'stuck' in internal rotation and with a heavy kyphosis. 



Like all the best things in life, face pulls have variations to suit different needs ,  our job as coaches is to select the most appropriate version.  I have listed a few variations that feature most often in my programs - its by no means exhaustive  - but should serve as a decent starting point:

Face Pull to External Rotation (Supinated Grip)

Most useful for those wanting to throw a bit more stress on to the posterior cuff,  easiest to cue this one as two movements - the first pull, and then the external rotation.  Clearly loads will need to be reduced vs the conventional set up otherwise there is a tendency to shrug the weight back rather than engage the cuff (yes I know I totally need a haircut)


Half kneel face pull

I like to use this variation for those with an exaggerated kyphosis, the downward moment of the pull really encourages the posterior tilt these folks can often struggle with.  I will more likely use this variation with a newer trainee to help them understand what it feels like to have the low traps work and open out the chest.

Less useful for the 'athletic meathead' posture of shoulder blades stuck in downward rotation  - with these guys this variation could actually make them worse so make sure you conduct a thorough evaluation and assessment.

Low to High Face Pull

I love this movement for encouraging upward rotation of the shoulder blades.  Ideal for those guys who have deadlifts for breakfast lunch and dinner and find the shoulder blades stuck in downward rotation.   The upward moment on the pull will cause you to initiate a shrug as the arms pass horizontal.  For those with a really aggressive down slope on the collar bone, you may want to cue some upper trap recruitment at this point (yes we need upper traps too).

As above this movement will be great for some, and less so for others - if your client or athlete presents with abducted (winging) and anteriorly tilted shoulder blades,  and upper trap 'dominance', then this one may not be for them.

Summary

The face pull, and its derivatives are an excellent way to keep your shoulders healthy and pain free, improve posture, and allow you to go heavy on the bench press more often (which is the whole point right).

However, and there is always a however, we must must must choose the most appropriate version for the situation in front of us.  As I have alluded to above, the key to designing any form of training program is the assessment - there is no way we can get from point A to point B unless we know where point A is.  And although the face pull is as close a thing as I have seen to a silver bullet for many common shoulder niggles we must choose the correct tool for the job.  To quote the genius that is Eric Cressey if you aren't assessing you're just guessing.

No massive relevance to the article, but there are probably silver bullets in this gun. And who doesn't love Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale.