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Kettlebell Shoulder health: TGU vs Clean & Press.

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NormanOsborn

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Is either exercise better for developing shoulder mobility and health? Or are Turkish Get Ups and Clean & Presses pretty much the same in that regard?

If you had any shoulder pain/mobility issues, would you choose one over the other?

Thanks.
 
For me personally, I think TGU helped me get through some impingement and mobility problems. It allowed me to slowly work through those painful sticky parts in the range of motion, while having a load on the shoulder.
But, I also think the Ballistic moves like snatching and cleans helped even out the strength imbalances in my shoulders that probably caused the impingements in the first place.
 
To answer your question

1. Depends on the trainee since certain exercises we can handle a given amount of volume and load

2. In relation to #1 I prefer getups
 
If I had shoulder pain, I'd definitely use the Turkish Get Up. It's such a slow movement that it allows you to adjust and analyze every aspect of the movement. Plus it really teaches you about how to move your body around a stable shoulder.
 
Is either exercise better for developing shoulder mobility and health? Or are Turkish Get Ups and Clean & Presses pretty much the same in that regard?

If you had any shoulder pain/mobility issues, would you choose one over the other?

Thanks.

If you mean which allows you to work around a problematic shoulder, then from my experience it is the TGU. Oddly enough, so is the snatch for me.

If you mean which will help fix such a shoulder, then neither did for me. A daily diet of dead hangs was/is the ticket for me.
 
I've started trying to build up my dead hangs before and after my S+S practice.
I had a broken collarbone years ago that never got the right treatment and dead hangs have helped tremendously.
Is there any issue with doing them like this, or should I only be doing them either before or after swings and TGUs like as a warm down situation?
 
I've started trying to build up my dead hangs before and after my S+S practice.
I had a broken collarbone years ago that never got the right treatment and dead hangs have helped tremendously.
Is there any issue with doing them like this, or should I only be doing them either before or after swings and TGUs like as a warm down situation?

I do them throughout the day, every time I pass the pullup bar. I do them as part of a workout warmup. I also hang to stretch the lats after swings, cleans, deadlifts ...etc.
 
The "mobility" part is easier to answer than the "health" part, but if I read between the lines then your answer is TGU for sure. Mobility is essentially the ability to:

A) Put your body / limb into certain positions, and at the same time
B) Having control / strength over those positions

The TGU puts your shoulders (plural ... don't forget the bottom shoulder) into essentially every position / angle of flexion & extension and abduction & adduction imaginable, while of course ensuring you are actually controlling / stabilizing said positions ... in this way it "checks all the boxes" for shoulder mobility better than any other exercise. Other exercises may do a great job of developing control over a CERTAIN POSITION (say a bottoms up overhead carry) but nothing casts as wide of a net as the TGU.

An analogy could be that of a hand grenade versus a sharp shooter: The TGU is your hand grenade ... it solves a lot of problems with just one solution, and is not meant to be "specific." If you still have more things you'd like to address on top of the TGU, select specific exercises to help you "sharp shoot" those concerns.
 
One other interesting experience I had with the TGU vs. MP (this is a story, not advice) ...

Three years ago I took a fall in BJJ and separated my shoulder badly. During the rehab process the TGU came back much faster than any pressing movement. In fact, I was able to do a 48kg TGU on the injured side faster than I was able to military press 8kg (not a typo).
 
I've started trying to build up my dead hangs before and after my S+S practice.
I had a broken collarbone years ago that never got the right treatment and dead hangs have helped tremendously.
Is there any issue with doing them like this, or should I only be doing them either before or after swings and TGUs like as a warm down situation?
Suffered a badly broken, but non-separated, collarbone playing rugby [tap-tackled]

Treatment: just got cut out of my jersey and had arm put in a sling

Ever since, daily and regular active and passive hangs [PNF - contract then relax into stretch] have kept my shoulders healthy for everything except bench-press...
 
The "mobility" part is easier to answer than the "health" part, but if I read between the lines then your answer is TGU for sure. Mobility is essentially the ability to:

A) Put your body / limb into certain positions, and at the same time
B) Having control / strength over those positions

The TGU puts your shoulders (plural ... don't forget the bottom shoulder) into essentially every position / angle of flexion & extension and abduction & adduction imaginable, while of course ensuring you are actually controlling / stabilizing said positions ... in this way it "checks all the boxes" for shoulder mobility better than any other exercise. Other exercises may do a great job of developing control over a CERTAIN POSITION (say a bottoms up overhead carry) but nothing casts as wide of a net as the TGU.

An analogy could be that of a hand grenade versus a sharp shooter: The TGU is your hand grenade ... it solves a lot of problems with just one solution, and is not meant to be "specific." If you still have more things you'd like to address on top of the TGU, select specific exercises to help you "sharp shoot" those concerns.

Excellent post. :cool: And I'm shamelessly stealing the Sharpshooter vs Hand Grenade analogy for future use. ?
 
For me, I rank them:

1. Windmill
2. C&P
3. Mace 360 / 10-2
4. Klokov press
5. Sots press
6. TGU
7. Renegade rows
8. Face pull
9. Arm bar
Interesting. I would say in my experience:
Face pulls, plate raises, TGU's, and band pull aparts are the most effective. I do a reasonable amount of overhead pressing, and as I've gotten older I've learned I need to consider how to maintain shoulder health. I was also a baseball player and decades of throwing had taken its toll, and had heavy bench pressing. My shoulders feel better now at 47 than they did at 30.
 
The "mobility" part is easier to answer than the "health" part, but if I read between the lines then your answer is TGU for sure. Mobility is essentially the ability to:

A) Put your body / limb into certain positions, and at the same time
B) Having control / strength over those positions

The TGU puts your shoulders (plural ... don't forget the bottom shoulder) into essentially every position / angle of flexion & extension and abduction & adduction imaginable, while of course ensuring you are actually controlling / stabilizing said positions ... in this way it "checks all the boxes" for shoulder mobility better than any other exercise. Other exercises may do a great job of developing control over a CERTAIN POSITION (say a bottoms up overhead carry) but nothing casts as wide of a net as the TGU.

An analogy could be that of a hand grenade versus a sharp shooter: The TGU is your hand grenade ... it solves a lot of problems with just one solution, and is not meant to be "specific." If you still have more things you'd like to address on top of the TGU, select specific exercises to help you "sharp shoot" those concerns.

The TGU indeed is an excellent shoulder mobility drill. However, it misses one crucial angle. I had an upper cross syndrome that caused impingement during overhead presses and still makes sots presses and overhead barbell squats impossible. Yet, I could do TGUs with perfect form since it never goes there.

Dead hangs totally fixed the impingement. Thoracic foam rolls, mace back swings and primal squats are steadily bringing me closer to perform overhead squats.
 
For me, I rank them:

1. Windmill
2. C&P
3. Mace 360 / 10-2
4. Klokov press
5. Sots press
6. TGU
7. Renegade rows
8. Face pull
9. Arm bar

I'm not sure what is the ranking criterion here. Is it according to shoulder mobility enhancement, strength building or tolerance to shoulder issues?

My current shoulders' health allows me to do all the above except 1, 4 and especially 5.
 
The TGU indeed is an excellent shoulder mobility drill. However, it misses one crucial angle. I had an upper cross syndrome that caused impingement during overhead presses and still makes sots presses and overhead barbell squats impossible. Yet, I could do TGUs with perfect form since it never goes there.

Dead hangs totally fixed the impingement. Thoracic foam rolls, mace back swings and primal squats are steadily bringing me closer to perform overhead squats.
I'm not sure what angle you're talking about? What angle do hangs get that TGU doesn't?

Both movements include a full overhead position (that is the only one that dead hangs include). With the TGU you need active upward rotation of the scapula to achieve that, versus with a dead hang that scapular rotation is largely passive, so if you can do it with a dead hang but not with TGU then it's a strength / stability issue, not an issue of the position.
 
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