These days I've enjoyed the explosion of resistance training exercises and methods that have come forth. FINALLY people realize that resistance training is good, and free-weight training even better. And FINALLY it isn't about body building, but instead about muscular and neuromuscular development for sports (or martial arts).
The bench-and-curl crowd are the ones you see in the gym with the "big bird" look. It's all about the show. You see puffy chests and big guns (biceps). You'll also often see "bird legs" because of the unbalanced development. (Lots of guys I know don't do squats.) Many of these guys also have skinny waists from the no-resistance marathon sit-up sessions. That's all fine and good, except... the core they're treating like a girlie girl's figure is the conduit for power from the largest muscles to the extremities. Deny that core the exercise it needs and all that puffy chest stuff is worthless. And you very well may be a guaranteed candidate for back problems later on.
The bench-and-curl crowd will not "get" exercises like the clean-and-jerk, the snatch, and the Turkish get-up. But these are the power, strength, and coordination exercises of the champions on the field. It ain't the show here; it's the go.
You can do your girlie figure exercises at the end of your workout.
This exercise - by its nature - creates long lever arms against key muscles in the shoulders and the trunk. It also requires an extraordinary amount of balance and coordination - especially when you get to larger weights. The more coordinated you are, the greater the weight you can do. The greater the weight you do, the stronger your shoulder stabilizers and trunk get. And the additional challenge you end up creating for yourself begats even more coordination, and more core strength, and...
This particular exercise is a natural for grapplers (jujutsu, judo, aikido, wrestling) and any karateka who doesn't mind taking it to the floor. I do an embellished variation of this in my class as a prelude to teaching them how to do light ukemi on hardwood floors. You'd be surprised how good it is for that.
And along those lines... I was taught in aikido to be able to fight at every level. In iaido I learned to disembowel and decapitate from seiza to standing. There was no wait-until-I-get-up pause. The act of getting up was part of the energy you delivered into your opponent. And this exercise helps you develop that mindset, as you are managing a force as you go from supine to standing.
Here's a video to inspire you. This guy makes it look easy. It absolutely is not. This is just sick. Doing this with a barbell as opposed to a dumbbell (my choice) or kettlebell is insane. Ponder the added stress on the wrists to pull this off.
turkish stand up get up instructional
Here are some instructional videos on the technique. There are two versions here. I do something close to the second (with lots of embellishment) because it blends in well with my ukemi. And that's probably why this MMA fighter does it as well.
Combat Sports Conditioning: Kettlebell Turkish Get-up Part 1
Combat Sports Conditioning: Kettlebell Turkish Get-up Part 2
I highly recommend you add an exercise like this to you routine. HOWEVER.... throw your ego away. Start light with something like 5 or 10 pounds. Like a clean-and-jerk, you'll be spending a lot of early work just getting the technique down so you don't hurt yourself.
- Bill
