Kettlebell Turkish Get-Up (Lunge style)

🎯 Shoulders🏋️ KettlebellIntermediateCompoundAbdominals (2°)Hamstrings (2°)Quadriceps (2°)Triceps (2°)

How to do the kettlebell turkish get-up (lunge style)

  1. Lie on your back on the floor and press a kettlebell to the top position by extending the elbow. Bend the knee on the same side as the kettlebell.
  2. Keeping the kettlebell locked out at all times, pivot to the opposite side and use your non- working arm to assist you in driving forward to the lunge position. Using your free hand, push yourself to a seated position, then progressing to one knee.
  3. While looking up at the kettlebell, slowly stand up. Reverse the motion back to the starting position and repeat.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down; the quadriceps straighten the knee and take load on the descent.

The triceps take a share of the work as well.

Every exercise for:ShouldersAbdominalsHamstringsQuadricepsTriceps

How this movement works

The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

A kettlebell's mass hangs below and outside the handle, so it pulls away from the grip and the wrist has to stay packed. That offset is why racked and swinging variations feel nothing like the dumbbell version.

Every exercise using:Kettlebell

These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 46 are listed at intermediate level.

Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.