Enjoy this great video of Stephen Jepson showing how he turns exercise into play. This TOJ really likes his mix of balance, agility, fine motor skills, and endurance.
Too often exercise recommendations for older adults are not very challenging. Older adults are treated like delicate porcelain vases ready to break at any moment. Jepson sees it differently, and shows how it can be done.
He understands that an older body, just like a young one, has muscles with motor units that are ready to go with a little stimulation and practice.
A good friend, who's a middle-aged, devoted triathlete, told me he's out of competition for a few months due to a pretty serious ankle injury. He's working hard to resume his run-bike-swim routine.
To stay fit during his rehab, he's been doing some biking and Turkish Get Ups (TGU), a smart choice because his body won't miss a beat when he's able to resume running. He sent the following request: "How about a write up - TOJ style - about Turkish Get Ups? Lace it with ancillary tidbits typical of the TOJ exercise profile."
Good idea, and anything for a friend. The Turkish Get Up (TGU) is such a powerful exercise that if for any reason you could only do one exercise, it might be the one because it is a total body exercise, strengthening muscles, ligaments and tendons from head to toe.This is truly an uber-exercise, like the yoga Salute to the Sun, only much more challenging.
The TGU has been around for a long time, maybe 300 years or more. If you Google it, you'll find it was a staple of strongmen in the old days. The TGU has risen in popularity right along with the Russian kettlebell. When you see or experience the intensity of the TGU, you get the Russian connection - simple, cheap, challenging, effective, unfashionable (like their space suits).
Grab your anatomy charts (I don't really expect you to look these up, but if you want to, here they are!). Your body has over 600 muscles. Of the prime movers that enable us to lift, walk, bend, squat, and lunge, the TGU relies on the Deltoids, Erector Spinae, Glutes, Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Adductors, Trapezius, Rhomboids, Flexors, Extensors, Serratus, Rectus Abdominus, Abductors, Gastrocnemius and Soleus. In addition, the TGU enlists scores of smaller stabilizer muscles that enable these prime movers to safely and effectively accomplish their work.
There are two videos below. If you've never performed at TGU, this TOJ suggests you just watch the first them to see how they're done to gain the maximum benefits offered when done properly.
Unfortunately, some professionally-produced videos and YouTube videos show people doing sloppy TGU's, skipping some of the key movements, showing poor alignment, not fully extending, and hurrying like its a race. You want to mimic how the professionals in the videos below execute the movement. Like so many things Americans try to make easy, say frozen gourmet French cuisine, the TGU is not. You are moving directly against gravity, the greatest force on earth.
In the first video, Gray Cook, a leader in the emerging field of functional movement, demonstrates the TGU. Cook is a physical therapist who wrote an influential book called "Movement" that is very critical of the reliance on machines and fancy technology that is so prevalent in gyms because they don't really prepare people for everyday life or athletic competition - they don't build basic mobility and stability. He writes: "People move muscles without the burden of controlling body weight, maintaining balance or managing alignment, but that is not life." All these "burdens" are in the TGU.
Note that he says he's is not that good at them. The TGU is much like a difficult piece of music that you must practice over and over again. Many times, especially at when you're learning, it's a struggle, but then it gets manageable.
Here's another excellent video by a Russian Kettlebell Association certified instructor. What's worth noting here is the full extension of his legs and back and how he stays centered under the kettlebell.
Note how during the transition from ground to single leg kneeling position, his body is held up by one leg and two feet in a rotated plank.
So why does this TOJ think the TGU is such a great exercise? It looks so awkward and easy - you just have to stand up. What's so awesome about the TGU is that 14 separate movements are incorporated into it that build the legs, core, and shoulder. This is not the typical gym machine muscle grunt in a single plane like the bench press. The TGU involves rotating the torso and sitting up (using deep core muscles like the internal obliques) and single leg lunge movements firing the glutes. From the very beginning of the exrcise, your shoulder performs one of the most challenging tasks there is for the scapula and glenohumeral joint (ever hear of rotator cuff injuries?) -an overhead press while the body moves. Finally, the TGU improves your balance in all multiple planes (up, down, sideways, forwards, backwards) . When you move through all the postures in the TGU, literally hundreds of muscles are communicating neurally with each other and the brain with reports as to the status of the body in space, and what muscles may need to be enlisted to support other ones.
The TGU is not a beginners exercise. You must have a relatively strong core and strong, stable shoulder to do this safely. The TGU is really a good guage of your overall
If you've not done it before, train for the TGU by breaking it into three stages: the sit-up, transition to a lunge position, then the rise up. The second half is just those same movements in reverse order. At first, just do these movements with no weight, then, when you know how if feels, add a light kettlebell or dumb bell.
You'll notice that both men in the videos keep their eye on the kettlebell during the entire exercise. They do this to maintain good alignment and stay centered under the weight. The further away a weight is held from your body, the more unstable it will be. The TGU increases the challenge of keeping the weight stable overhead because the weight is loaded asymmetrically - that is, it's held in one hand on one side of your body. The challenge for the rest of your body, which is accomplished when the TGU is done properly, is to maintain your body's center of gravity in complete alignment with the weight overhead.
Here are a few other tips if you want to learn or improve with the TGU:
It's not necessary to do more than 3-6 reps per side of your body. At first you may find it challenging to do it on both sides because you have muscle imbalances such that one side is stronger than the other and you may need to train both sides into parity.
Concentrate on doing the entire movement properly, not how much weight you are lifting. This exercise is powerful even with light weights.
Remember to breath throughout the entire exercise. Don't hold your breath. You're going to use a lot of muscle that needs a steady supply of oxygen.
The TGU never gets easy because you'll steadily want to increase the weight and reps to keep stimulating your muscles. Yeah, it's one of those exercises you'll take a deep breath before you get on the floor to do the first one. Sometimes your arm holding the kettblebell and all the rest of your body will tremble and waver as you struggle to maintain proper form. But you will feel exhilerated like Atlas when you see the kettlebell overhead after you stand up, and you feel a wonderful sense of relief and accomplishment when you lay down the kettlebell after that last rep.
The TGU is training for real life, not building faux muscle for strutting on the beach or in the gym. The real rewards are much more important and long term - you can get out of bed, lift up your child, kneel to pick up something you dropped, reach overhead across a fence to pick an apple, roll under your car to see if the muffler is coming loose. As you watch or do the TGU, think of all the everyday physical activities that are rehearsed in the TGU.
The rewards aren't just physcial either. Sometimes life knocks you down and you have to get back up. You have a setback in your health or at work, wherever. The TGU gives you mental stamina and toughness. Do them so, like my friend, you'll get up.
The human body has over 600 muscles. Each time you take up a new type of exercise, you feel muscles that have always been there, but you maybe never noticed - especially the second day when DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) sets in. I just enjoyed that experience of forgotten muscles.
On a trip to Chicago to visit my family, my daughter-in-law took my wife as a guest to her health club, where they got a great workout, and my wife used a Bosu Ball. If you don't know what one is (I didn't because I don't go to health clubs), imagine the upper third of a large ball cut off, sitting on top of a sturdy plastic base. She returned tired and enthused and, knowing I'm always looking for ways to keep exercise interesting and challenging, suggest we get one. We made it our Xmas present to each other.
Although the Bosu Ball is marketed as a device to improve balance, it's much more than that. If you go to any good website, like the Bosu inventor's BosuFitness, you'll find an array total body exercises. I find it fun and plenty hard. It's one of those devices that if you slam it hard, it slams you hard back because the top is an inflated, heavy rubber bladder that easily holds your body weight and rebounds when you compress it, a little like a trampoline.
My legs, especially my ankles and calves, are pretty strong from trail running, where you have to constantly adjust to rocks and ruts. But after twenty-five minutes on the Bosu Ball while following three expert instructors on a DVD, my legs burned and my balance started to break down. I noticed that instead of relying on my legs to lift me on and off the ball, I was wildly swinging my shoulders and my ankles became wobbly.
I thought about an article at SportsGeezer.com that highlighted research conducted at the University of Indiana about the relationship of running injuries to fatigue. The article discusses how as fatigue increases, it causes small changes in running form. A small group muscles starts to fail first, then other muscles compensate to keep the runner going forward. As you tire more, you lose muscle control, causing instability and poor form. Your body loses its natural balance, placing additional stress somewhere else, which eventually causes an overuse injury becaused physical forces are transferred to muscles not normally enlisted in the activity.
All the muscles in the body are connected, head to toe, through what kinesologists and exercise physiologists call the kinetic chain. Most rigorous activities engage almost every muscle to one degree or another. However, training in a particular activity increases the strength and endurance mainly in the muscles enlisted for the particular activity. When the primary muscles used in an activity start to fail, the secondary ones come to the rescue.
So when you start exercising in a new activity or with a new apparatus, new muscles are being engaged. I'm in good shape for what I do a lot, and not for things I don't. Because you are a strong runner will not translate that you will also be a strong bicycle racer. Psychologicallly, cross-training has great benefits to keep from getting bored, but the actual performance benefits are limited.
What the Bosu Ball reminded me is that you have to remember you're a beginner and slowly build your muscles and reflexes for the new activity. I was having a great time and going hard, but it was new to some of my muscles, and they tired faster than usual and lost coordination. Ironically, if you are exercising hard, you can actually be slightly hypoxic, which means your brain becomes short of oxygen and you don't think straight or recognize you've entered the potential injury zone.
One advantage of being a TOJ is you're (usually) smart enough to stop because injuries happen when you start to tire. You've been in various states of fatigue many times before, and understand physical success takes time and persistence. Skills only come with repetition.
I jumped back on the Bosu today and felt those forgotten muscles again. But they already were learning what to do. And I was on it for several more minutes then the first time before my kinetic chain started to breakdown. Ah, progress.
Exercise and Stem Cells
Doing research on rats, the University of Tel Aviv made another small step for mankind towards understanding the miracle of exercise. In this case, they found that endurance exercise (likely it would be true of resistance exercise as well, but guess it's hard to get rats to lift weights) increases muscle stem cells, which might be key to preventing or slowing sarcopenia, the wasting of muscles that occurs with aging. What's interesting is the researcher dreams of finding a pill people can pop. How about just exercising more?
More Is Better
Speaking of pill popping, the credible Institute of Medicine has released the results of their research on Vitamin D. In the past few years, an alphabet of vitamins has been touted to do all kinds of wonderful things for us; first it was C, then E, and lately Vitamin D. While all these vitamins do play important roles in our health, somehow when we hear something is good, we think more must be even better. Often the "more" message is supported by the supplement industry. Read what the IOM has to say. Contrary to rumors, most North Americans get enough Vitamin D, so crucial to bone health. Remember Vitamin D shortage is what causes rickets, a disease with skeletal deformities. The IOM confirms Vitamin D is important to bone health, but other claims about cancer prevention and heart health are questionable. There's a nice chart with recommended levels by age.
Getting Vitamins the Good Old-Fashioned Way
Dr. Mercola has a concise collection of info on vegetables, which is the preferred way to get our nutrients (see the Becoming a Lean, Mean, Eating Machine last month). Especially useful is a chart showing which vegetables are worth the premium to go organic. Mercola sells supplements, but to his credit, his article concludes that the best way to get your nutrients is by eating vegetables.
Why Wii Fit?
Gretchen Reynolds has an excellent article in the NY Times about exercising via video games like Wii Fit. No surprise, studies find the games are not physically demanding enough to for most folks to get the health benefits of real exercise. However, they did find that the technology worked well to improve the balance of older folks in their 70's. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the exercises might not help TOJ's of all ages, too. Balance is completely overlooked in many exercise routines.
