How to Do the Turkish Get-Up: Proper Form, Variations, and Common Mistakes

When it comes to total body training, there are few exercises that target your entire body the way the Turkish get-up does. The beauty of this kettlebell exercise, in which you move from a lying position to kneeling to standing before returning to the floor, is that it takes you through all three planes of motion—sagittal, transverse, and frontal.

How to Do a Turkish Get-Up

If you're just starting out with the Turkish get-up, consider practicing the exercise as part of your warm-up routine. Performing just a few repetitions without weight gets your heart rate up while preparing you for the meat of your workout.

Once you've mastered proper form and you're ready to start adding more resistance, include get-ups as part of your regular strength training routine. Start with a lightweight kettlebell and increase resistance as you improve.

Lie on the floor on your right side, your knees bent and your legs stacked, one on top of the other. Hold the kettlebell in both hands directly in front of your chest (elbows bent), your right hand gripping the handle, and your left hand covering your right hand. At this point, you're almost in a fetal position.

Roll onto your back, bringing the kettlebell to your chest as you do. Press the kettlebell up into the air as you extend both arms. Bring your right arm perpendicular to the floor, and pull your right shoulder into its socket as you lock out your right elbow.

Once the kettlebell is stable and secure, extend your left arm and leg on the ground, angling them roughly 45-degrees from your midline. Your right knee should remain bent with your right foot planted on the floor near your glutes.

Take a deep breath and press through your right heel for support as you roll to the left, pressing up onto your left elbow.

Exhale, then press all the way up onto your left palm, coming to a seated position, fully extending your left arm as you come to the seated position.

As you sit up, the arm supporting the kettlebell should remain fully extended, your humerus locked into the shoulder socket, and the kettlebell always staying perpendicular to the floor. This means as you come to a seated position, your arm moves from a position extended over your chest to a position extended directly over your shoulder.

Squeeze your glutes and extend your hips, lifting them as high as you can, as though you were performing a bridge exercise. Take a breath in before you perform the hip extension and exhale as you lift your hips.

Keep the kettlebell extended directly over your shoulder, perpendicular to the floor. With your hips extended, you should be supported by your left arm, your right foot, and the outer edge of your left foot.

Sweep or draw your left leg (the extended one) under your body, bending your knee and bringing it behind and in line with your left hand, planting your knee and your shin on the ground in a modified kneeling position.

As you perform this leg sweep, the kettlebell should remain perpendicular to the ground, which means your right hip and shoulder will rotate up toward the ceiling, and the arm supporting the kettlebell will likewise move in its position so it's adducted from the midline of your body to form a 90-degree angle with your torso.

Take a breath in, make sure your core is engaged, and as you exhale, remove your left hand from the floor and lift your torso to an upright position so you're in a kneeling or lunge position. Allow your left shin and foot to sweep naturally around so your hips are square with one another.

As you come to this kneeling position, keep the kettlebell perpendicular to the floor. This will mean adjusting the position of your arm to an overhead press so it's extended straight overhead from the shoulder. Once you're set, adjust your eyes so you're looking straight ahead.

Press through your back foot and front heel and engage your core, leveraging yourself up as you step your back foot forward, coming to a standing position as you extend your knees and hips fully. Keep your eyes forward-facing.

Exhale as you stand. When you're standing, your feet should be roughly hip-distance apart. You've completed half of the get-up, and now need to reverse the movements to return to the floor.

Step backward, planting the ball of your left foot on the ground. Keeping your eyes forward-facing, your core engaged, and your right arm fully extended over your shoulder, bend both knees and lower your back knee slowly toward the floor. Once your knee is on the floor, point your left toes so the top of your foot is flat on the ground.

Rotate your left knee and lower leg about 90-degrees so that it's perpendicular to your right knee.

Engage your core and, as you keep the kettlebell perpendicular to the floor, carefully tip from the hip to place your left hand on the floor directly in front of your left knee. Keep your eyes on the kettlebell as you perform this movement.

Sweep your left leg back under your body, keeping your hips lifted and your abs engaged, extending your leg so you're supported in a tripod position with your right foot, the outside of your left foot, and your left hand.

Make sure you continue looking at the kettlebell as you go and that you keep the kettlebell perpendicular to the floor throughout the movement.

Lower your hips to the floor, coming to a seated position.

Roll down onto your left elbow.

Then, slowly roll all the way to the ground so you're lying down, the kettlebell in a chest press position, still perpendicular to the floor.

Use your left hand to help bring the kettlebell back to your chest then bend both knees before rolling to your left side in a fetal-like position. You've completed one full repetition to the right side. Repeat on the left side.

Benefits of the Turkish Get-Up

The Turkish get-up really does target almost every major muscle group, and due to transitions between lying, kneeling, and standing, there's a particularly strong focus on the core and the stabilizing muscles of the hips and shoulders.

Two of these transitions require a strong hip hinge, which places a particular focus on the hips, glutes, hamstrings, abs, and low back. The squat and lunge positions target all the major muscle groups of the lower body.

And because you're holding a weight over your shoulder, moving through a range of motion while also stabilizing the weight to prevent injury, you engage your shoulder, triceps, upper back, and the small stabilizing muscles of your chest and shoulders.

There's a cross-body sling between each hip and the opposite shoulder, and by performing the Turkish get-up, which focuses on hitting each shoulder unilaterally while requiring the hips to perform hinges, you have the ability to strengthen this cross-body sling and improve core power and stability. This provides greater core strength and rotational power that can be helpful for twisting movements, especially during athletic activities.

Promotes Shoulder Stability

Beyond the development of total-body strength and coordination, one of the biggest benefits of the Turkish get-up is how effective the exercise is at improving shoulder stability and mobility. The shoulder joint is the least stable joint in the body, and it's particularly prone to injury due to this instability.

Many people have limited shoulder mobility due to frequent slouching (desk jobs, looking at cell phones, poor posture). It's also common to overwork the chest and shoulders while failing to balance opposing muscle groups by working the upper back, When a joint is unstable and has limited mobility, the result is often injury and chronic pain.

The Turkish get-up requires you to hold a weight perfectly stable over your shoulder (developing shoulder stability) while working through a range of motion as you transition between lying, kneeling, and standing. This range of motion requires the engagement of the upper back, helping identify where you lack proper shoulder mobility.

Alleviates Muscles Imbalance

Because the Turkish get-up places such a strong emphasis on identifying and shoring up muscle imbalances and weaknesses, mainly through the hips, core, shoulders, and upper back, the exercise can help improve posture. Improved posture reduces the likelihood of experiencing low back pain.

Together, these two benefits can give you a stronger, more confident, and agile stride that allows you to move through everyday life with greater ease.

Uses Multiple Planes of Movement

Most strength training exercises use only one or two planes of motion. The Turkish get-up uses all three, which helps build strength in a way that transfers seamlessly to everyday life. After all, as you go about your day, you walk, twist, bend over, sit down and stand up, constantly transitioning from one thing to the next. Your major muscle groups function as a unit to enable these transitions.

This concept applies to all movements and all muscles. A well-balanced musculature, strong core, and strong stabilizers at the hips and shoulders all help make you more efficient in everyday movements while reducing the likelihood of injury.

Exercises like the Turkish get-up not only hit every major muscle group, but they provide a way to practice transitions in a controlled way. This can help you identify and shore up any weaknesses or imbalances that you have while building strength that can transition to functional day-to-day movements and more athletic endeavors.

Other Variations of the Turkish Get-Up

You can perform this exercise in different ways to meet your skill level and goals.

Partial Turkish Get-Ups

Rather than performing the entire Turkish get-up, break the exercise into smaller bites and practice each segment individually.

• Practice moving from the lying position to the kneeling position, then back again.
• Practice moving from the kneeling position to the standing position and back.

As you develop greater strength, you can start linking the segments together to perform the entire get-up.

Bottoms Up Turkish Get-Up

If you feel comfortable with the mechanics of the entire Turkish get-up, make it more challenging by performing the movement "bottoms up." This means holding the kettlebell so the bell (weighted) portion of the kettlebell points straight up toward the ceiling throughout the movement.

This requires more strength and stability because the kettlebell's bell will naturally want to rotate down toward the floor. It requires more focus, grip strength, and the engagement of stabilizing muscles to prevent the bell from rotating. Decrease your weight the first time you try this variation—it's more challenging than it sounds.

Common Mistakes

The Turkish get-up is a complex exercise. Avoid these common errors to perform the movements safely and effectively.

Lack of Sustained Tension in the Muscles

To avoid shoulder or low-back injury, keeping your core—all of the muscles between your hips and shoulders—engaged throughout the exercise is crucial. This means keeping your abs, glutes, hips, back, chest, and shoulders activated as you move.

Your best bet to make sure you're maintaining proper form is to work with a trainer as you learn the movement. If that's not an option, consider videotaping yourself doing the exercise so you can compare your form to that of an expert, looking for areas of weakness.

Moving Too Fast

The Turkish get-up is not designed to be performed quickly—this is especially true as you're learning. Take it slow. Give yourself several seconds per action, really focusing on your form.

A single get-up could take as much as a minute from start to finish. By taking your time, you're more likely to keep your muscles appropriately engaged and to avoid injury by yanking or jerking your body unnaturally from one position to the next.

Bending the Arm

The arm supporting the kettlebell should remain fully extended and locked at the elbow and wrist to help prevent injury to the arm, especially the shoulder. If your elbow is bent or your wrist bends backward, it becomes significantly more challenging to support the kettlebell's weight safely. This puts you at risk of placing extra strain on the shoulder joint or potentially dropping the kettlebell.

By fully extending your elbow and wrist and keeping the kettlebell perpendicular to the floor through all phases of the movement, your body is stacked and you can use your legs, hips, torso, and shoulder to support the weight of the kettlebell, rather than relying only on the strength of the supporting arm.

This becomes increasingly important as you increase the resistance of the exercise. Try watching yourself perform the movement in a mirror to ensure your elbow and wrist remain straight and locked.

Safety and Precautions

The complex nature of this exercise means that there are lots of ways to get hurt or exacerbate a previous injury. This is not an exercise for beginners—you need a good baseline level of strength and coordination before adding it to your routine.

Consider working with a trainer who is well-versed in the movement to make sure you're performing the exercise correctly. And if at any point you feel sharp or shooting pain, discontinue the exercise or pare it back and work on the segments that don't cause problems. As you get better over time, you may be able to add the elements you couldn't initially perform into your routine.

Try It Out

Incorporate this move and similar ones into one of these popular workouts:

• Pick Up Your Kettlebell for a Fun Workout
• Upper Body Power and Strength Workout
• Kettlebell Power and Strength Total Body Exercises