Don't have a fully kitted home gym? Not to worry, you can still have a full body workout at home using a single kettlebell. The kettlebell get up – sometimes also called Turkish get up – is a flow of movements that will work all major muscle groups in your body. And you don't even need a heavy kettlebell either.
• 10,000 swings kettlebell challenge TESTED
Having just a limited amount of the best home gym equipment at your disposal doesn't have to be restrictive. Using the right exercises, one kettlebell can provide you with a full body workout. Better still, this one move kettlebell full body workout is not overly difficult either. As long as you do it right.
• How to do kettlebell swings correctly
With most of the world going into the second lockdown, it’s probably a good time to start thinking about how to get stronger and how to build muscle at home. It’s not like gyms are going to stay open, so you are better off doing the best full body workouts in your home gym instead.
Luckily, there are a lot of options to choose from. If you haven’t got any gym equipment, you can try following the Mike Tyson bodyweight workout. It uses a minimal amount of home gym equipment and considering how Iron Mike looked like in his heydays, it can evidently build muscle. Bad news is, it involves working out 10 times a day and doing industrial amounts of reps and sets of the included bodyweight exercises.
How about the best push-pull workouts? Following a push-pull workout routine is a good way to increase workout frequency since your ‘push’ muscles are resting on ‘pull’ days and vica versa, meaning you can work out more often and build muscle faster. Problem is, the best way to do push pull workouts is to use a gym and equipment such as the cable machine and the best weight benches / best barbells.
If you are not planning on investing heavily in the best home gym equipment, the best calisthenics home workout might just be the right choice for you to build functional muscle and to lean up a bit. These bodyweight exercises are home friendly and can effectively build muscle too. Shame most of them take a longer time to master and get used to.
If you have at least one kettlebell in your possession, we have an alternative option for a full body workout. It involves just one exercise yet it can build muscle and help strengthen posture too. It can also improve muscle-mind coordination and sculpt functional muscles, not just ones that are only aesthetically pleasing but useless.
The move we would like to discuss does that all and more. It involves you getting up the floor and standing up and going back down on the floor while holding a kettlebell. If it sounds too easy to be true, let us reassure you: this move is easy in theory but all the much harder to pull off properly. Not hard-hard, but difficult enough to give you a full body workout in just one move.
Kettlebell get up
The kettlebell get up – a.k.a. Turkish get up – is yet another one of those exercises that no one knows about despite being an amazing kettlebell exercise. It’s simple yet effective and will improve shoulder muscle definition, as well as glute strength significantly. Kettlebell get ups also do wonders to your core and therefore should be considered one of the best core exercises.
The kettlebell get up is all about transitions. First, you transition from lying to kneeling, then kneeling to standing, then standing to kneeling again and finally, from kneeling to lying again, going full circle in just one move. All the while, you need to keep the kettlebell above your head which will admittedly put some pressure on your shoulders and core so make sure those are tight as a tiger.
Best of all, since you are using a weight that’s ‘light’ enough to be able to hold up, you can use smaller kettlebells for this move and these are almost always available. Not like the 16- and 20-kilo varieties that are out of stock pretty much all the time thanks to the pandemic. For kettlebell get ups, feel free to use 4- and 8-kilo kettlebells, even those will provide plenty of resistance for this one-move kettlebell workout.
IMPORTANT: the kettlebell get up is a complex move and involves holding weight over your head so if you are unsure about yourself, make sure you get someone to supervise as you exercise. Also, if you are struggling with obesity or have issues with your hip mobility, kettlebell get ups might not be the best exercise for you. Please consult a medical professional first and ask for their advice on the matter.
Is the kettlebell get up good for building muscle?
As amazing as the kettlebell get up is, it is probably not the best exercise for building muscle. It is great for building overall strength, to improve muscle coordination and it is especially great for shoulder definition. But since you use all your muscles in unison, none of them are being stimulated well enough for quick gains.
That said, doing a 100 kettlebell get ups a day will probably build muscle, musch like other 'overloading' workouts such as the 10,000 swings kettlebell workout. We haven't tried this, though, so don't take this as a recommendation. When it comes to muscle building, being sensible almost always pays off better than just lifting heavy.
