Yesterday I kept my kettlebell workout as simple as possible but not simpler.

I started off with 10 minutes of Turkish Get Ups with the 20 KG kettlebell. I spent a good 15-20 seconds on each of the fractions of the movement. Each Get Up required 2 minutes of long chest, long spine and packed shoulder. I’m certain that these get ups were the best quality that I’ve ever accomplished.

One of my students asked me “Why?” regarding the Get Up. As in what’s the point. Certainly a valid question and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

First, the Get Up is a great screen – in fact, it might be the perfect screen. It really lets you know what is going on inside your body from front to back and right to left, especially when performed Kalos Sthenos style.

Everybody, EVERYBODY, needs to perform the Get Up routinely. Whether once or multiple times per week, it needs to be in the program. Perhaps as a warm up, perhaps as a finisher. It needs to be there.
The Get Up is a natural movement pattern – or more specifically and better put – a series of natural movement patterns linked together. Lying to sitting. Sitting to [half] kneeling. [Half] kneeling to standing. And back again. And of course there’s also some rolling in there to load the bell onto the body.

The Get Up might well be the best “core” exercise there is. If we agree that the core is at least 27 muscles, including the lats, hamstrings, adductors, and glutes, along with of course the erector spinae and the abs, then it leaves no muscle untouched. It works the posterior chain, the anterior chain, and teaches the body how to stabilize the spine under asymmetrical loading and counteract rotation. I think that pretty much covers its importance.

I also did 20 minutes of intuitive swings yesterday. Again, I really wanted to get a good Hard Style lock and used a 20 kg kettlebell to really get good feel. I did powerful sets of 10 and I really focused on power generation at all cost. Put the bell down after 10 and shook it out fast and loose and hit it again. I did not count sets I just went by feel. And I liked it a lot. Good, hard, quality swings.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC