How to Do a Turkish Get-Up

Let's go over the Turkish get-up. Everyone's favorite movement. This movement is one of the most potent kettlebell movements you can do. I'm going to go over two main things. Number one is the five steps that are the actual movement. Like all the other movements, this is just going to take practice. Give it some time to feel comfortable. You can even try doing this without a kettlebell at first if it's really daunting, and then add a kettlebell.

This should be, by the way, extremely simple. If it's not, this is a sign you need this movement more than anything. Do you understand that? If you can't do this, I'm not even going to say anything, but you have to prioritize this if you can't do it very simply. If you can't get up and off the ground properly, you need this. Okay? So five steps first, and then we're going to go over just a few cues, like a few important things, like almost rules that you need to know while you're doing the whole sequence in general.

So as we're setting up for the get-up, what we're going to do is almost like get into a fetal position type of position where you bring your knees together. You're going to loop your working arm, working hand through the handle of the kettlebell, and here we're in our fetal position, and we use our free hand to help roll this kettlebell onto our chest safely like this. Then we press up, and then we're ready to initiate the five steps.

What are the five steps? As simple as this, my friends, right? So, and I crafted these five steps just to make it easy for you to remember what to do. So you don't have to think too much. Okay? Step one, once you've got the kettlebell ready to go, we start step one from here. Step one is getting off our back, right? And then you'll notice, let me just explain each step, too.

In order to get off my back, I'm not just going directly up. What I'm doing is I'm pulling this foot next to my butt, the same foot that's on the same side as the kettlebell, and using this to drive my body to this left side, right? So I'm driving myself, and then I'm also pushing with this arm, pushing diagonal up and across my body, using this foot to help me drive, right?

And as I do that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull this elbow into me, like underneath me at the same time, all in one swift motion. That's step one. Step one, get off the back, just like that. Okay? And then step two, get off my elbow. Right now, I'm posted up on my left elbow, I push to get off my elbow. As I push, this is important, pay attention.

As I push, I collect my legs. Okay, did you hear that? I collect my legs into this sort of board game position, right? And the whole time, have you noticed guys, my eyes are on the kettlebell. Okay, do not take your eyes off the kettlebell until I tell you to. So eyes are on the kettlebell and my arm is straight. I'm not bending my arm like this. My arm is straight, locked out.

Boom. Okay. From here, I can put my weight on this front foot and this back hand, which allows me to lift up my hips and create space for my knee to come underneath. And that was step three is get off my butt, right? Step three, get off my butt right here to the knee. Step four, get off my hand right here. This is where I can take my eyes off the bell and look where I'm about to step, stepping into a lunge.

And then step five, get off the knee. So step five, back to the knee. Step four, back to the hand and notice my eyes went right back on the bell. Step three, back to my butt. Step four, back to my elbow. And step five, fight my way to my back. Safely dismount just like this. Boom. Now I could do one time on the left side, just all the way through so you guys can see.

And then I can go over some of the things to focus on, which I already actually went over, which is really keep your eyes on the kettlebell the whole time, except for when you're about to lunge forward, like I showed you, and keep your arms straight. Do not let it bend ever. And then finally, like I always said previously when we're pressing and doing things like that, keep your knuckles facing the ceiling, not your palm, knuckles.

Okay, that's pretty much it. Otherwise, follow the steps and the cues with your body. So step one, get off the back again. Notice where my foot is. And also to begin, you starfish your body out like this, starfishing your limbs out. You want to kind of spread your legs as much as you can apart to give yourself a wide base. Step one, we push off this foot, pull in this elbow. Step two, push off the elbow onto the hand.

Step three, get off the butt, putting our weight on this foot and this hand, creating space, making the hips light, bringing that knee underneath. And then we get off our hand, step forward, eyes came off the kettlebell as I step forward, step five, get off the knee, and then reverse the steps. Five, eyes back on the bell, four, three, two, one. That is it. Hope that helps.