The single most beneficial exercise you might not doing

???? Turkish Get Up (TGU) is the exercise that gave the most benefit to me after the kettlebell swing. ????

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It was one of the first exercises I learned, and the one I am always going back to it to find the week spots in my body. As a strength coach, I often use it to teach the fundamental movements to someone also use it to assess movement quality.?

It used to be a strongmen feat, and rumor has it has been invented by Turkish soldiers and used in training as a preparation for war.?

But what makes it so unique within the training realm?

It's a chain of movements that covers a really broad range of capabilities like

?? Upper body push

?? Upper body pull?

?? Roll

?? Spinal flexion, rotation, and extension as well as anti-flexion, -rotation and -extension

?? hip hinge (which is crucial for lifting movements)

?? lunge?

There is a journey to it for sure, one of those things that really worth to be bad at for a while because of the benefits.

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?? Learning the proper form could take from a day to a lifetime because we need to fight against our body's limitations throughout the movement.

Shoulder mobility, hip mobility, wrist mobility, as well as stability of these joints could be limiting factors for good execution.?

?? For me, first I needed to overcome a wrist issue to learn it. I had a huge ganglion cyst on my right wrist when I started to learn, so I needed to deal with that first. The practice of touching the ground, gently loading the joint, and mobilizing the area was my first task. Then later on it turned out when I reached the half-kneeling position with a heavier weight that I have a weak connection between the same side shoulder and hips, so I needed to address that one too. Lately, I learned about a similar issue of mine when I rolled up on one side with a bottle on my fist it was way harder on my right because I had less control.

Interestingly these issues all pointing to the same side all the time, so it's awesome feedback about my progress and a good way to chose direction.

Wait why should anyone do an exercise with a water bottle?

This is another aspect of the Turkish. The ability to do it without a weight, balancing something on your fist makes it even more challenging and eye-opening. Just try to get up from the floor this way and you wish you did it with a weight. The instability of the object will give you instant feedback if you don't have control over a certain range. With practice, you will gain control and when you do it with a weight it will make sense.?

Please be aware! The water bottle version is highly stressful because you will be continuously reminded about your mistakes and to make it happen you need to huge efforts. I heard from really advanced athletes that they were rather doing it with 48kg than with a bottle.?

Actually, in my classes, I won't add weight to the TGU until someone is not capable to do it with a balancing object.?

?? Even if you think you are a master of your TGU next time just try it with a plastic water bottle.?

If you just started out, maybe a shoe is challenging enough.

Practice it for 5-10 minutes after your warm-up (I often do it as my warm-up).

I will also post an instructional video from a post from the past for the first move

Have a good practice :)