Garrett (GMoney MVMT) Kuljian’s Workshop – My First Time In Scandinavia!

My first overseas trip of 2024 was at the beginning of March, so just over 2 months ago now. And for the first time in quite a while it wasn’t solely a leisure trip.

Coincidentally it was my first time participating in a workshop for even longer, and my first overseas workshop!

Garrett ‘Gmoney Movement’ Kuljian is a growing name in the movement scene, thanks to his exposure from guys like Lucas Aaron (Range Of Strength), social media and his own journey from beaten up crossfitter, finding it hard to squat, touch his toes and just move well and freely, to all the cool stuff he does now in a body free of hip impingement and all the other limitations he faced, and at one point thought were just ‘how he is made’.

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Interestingly, I didn’t actually know much about him before the trip, having only seen his content and name floating around thanks to others sharing his work, or Instagram’s explore page working its magic, for once.

It was my good friend Ollie, who I’ve mentioned many times before that posed the idea to me. I said an impulsive YES and signed up without much research or thought as to what the syllabus was, or anything else really. I guess I trusted Ollie’s judgement.

What was even cooler about this is me and Ollie actually met many years ago now at Emmet Louis’ 2017 Modern Methods Of Mobility workshop in London. So to take part in another (arguably a bigger event) workshop all these years later was seriously neat.

Top it off with it being in Sweden and the appeal just grew and grew!

I hadn’t ventured into any of Scandinavia before despite having seen loads of documentaries, YouTube videos as well as spending lots of time studying the geography, culture and economics.

But even more basic than that…..it would be the chance to get TWO new countries on my all time list, as we flew into Copenhagen (DENMARK) before taking the train up to Halmstad (SWEDEN).

Now I’m no Drew Binsky but it’s still nice to add places to my insignificant tally.

Scandinavian Glory

Scandinavia has appealed to me for a plethora of reasons. The efficiency (everything is done faster, smoother and better). The culture/viking based history (the making of tough men & qualities sorely lacking in men nowadays). The quality of life (health markers are far higher than most of Europe minus maybe vitamin D levels?). The lack of population (10 million people in all of Sweden vs 10 million in London alone almost). The landscape (have you seen the tundras, mountains, rivers, forests & coastline?!). The climate (ok, this is just for fascination reasons only; how do they cope year in year out in such extremes?!).

The lack of population was noticeable immediately. As soon as we landed in Copenhagen you saw a clean and fairly empty airport, with little to no queues at passport control. It was the same on the mainline train out of Denmark and into Sweden. Plenty of seats and space despite it being ‘rush hour’.

Even when we arrived in Halmstad (admittedly a small town) we were always wondering where everyone was?

You could cross the road without waiting, ALWAYS. There were no queues in the shops and just no hustle and bustle. I freaking loved it! And apparently it’s always like that in Sweden (from the Swedes themselves).

They don’t know what roadrage even is – I legit had to explain it to them!

Before I get accused of sucking up to Sweden I’ll touch on something that definitely isn’t the best….the damn climate. For the entire 72 hours we were there we didn’t see one spec of light grey cloud; only thick dark cloud. You know the gloomy kind that looks like it wants to rain heavily?

It was only when we got back into Copenhagen (DENMARK) that we saw even light cloud, then eventually sun. And we thought the UK was bad….

The scariest part is longitudinally we were only as far north as Edinburgh, Scotland. Yet it felt like another world. That north easterly wind coupled with the gloom had us convinced it was Christmas time there, except it was March!

Savagery. But as savage as the conditions seemed for March, Sweden was still a beautiful place full of great people and it’s somewhere I’d love to see more of.

Two Full Days Of Learning Garrett’s Philosophy

We started on Saturday morning at the slightly friendly time of 10 am, hosted by Frihet i Rörelse which translates to Freedom To Move – an intimate training studio that’s played host to some big names in the movement scene already, with people like the Swedish handbalancer Mikael Kristiansen, Emmet Louis and others having already graced the studio for workshops in recent years.

The guys here are friendly, passionate and seriously versed in English language which seems to be the case for almost all Swedes. They were pretty shocked to see two Brits making a trip over for the event as well.

Day one started with ankle anatomy & physiology which covered some great mobility drills for the all sought after dorsiflexion, as well as the commonly overlooked plantarflexion. What made these drills extra neat was not only that I hadn’t seen them before, but that they also hit the quota of being loadable, working well with contractions, and above all being effective.

I’ve used them with great success in my own daily routines, in person with one to one clients and even in my group sessions. The dorsiflexion drill with the big toe extension just makes the resting squat better and better, each time you do it. You can literally see and feel the improvements from one attempt to the next.

It was also really cool to learn more about compensation patterns at the ankle when specific ranges are lacking, and how far upstream these issues can move.

After 3 hours of super detailed theory with some practical demonstrations thrown in for the ankles, it was time for a lunchbreak and to look ahead to Saturday afternoon, where the theme was hip extension and all things pertaining to it.

Whenever I hear hip extension I think front splits, I think back bridges with straight legs, I think functional glutes and long stride lengths, I think healthy knees, I think anti-aging…..basically improved hip extension will equal improved quality of life in some way, shape or form for virtually everyone.

So this was a long anticipated section for me, at least. And what was even more interesting when we delved into hip extension, was how Garrett approaches it versus how most of us generally approach it….

Let’s face it, we’ve all had times where we’ve held couch stretches and long lunges for 1-2 minutes each side and felt some nice relief, for the quads and hip flexors to just always feel tight no matter how often we vow to ‘finally open our hips’.

Garrett started off the hip extension segment differently. He approached it from the perspective of pelvic control and the strength/activation of the hip extensor muscles. His point being: most people have very weak and dysfunctional glutes/hamstrings, along with piss poor pelvic control. They walk around in a donald duck butt like anterior pelvic tilt and can’t even tilt their pelvis to neutral, let alone a genuine posterior tilt.

Then when they go to ‘stretch their hip flexors’ they end up hyperextending their lower back/lumbar area, and the hip flexor muscles remain stiff as a board. So it stands to reason that it would be a good idea to develop strength, control and most importantly a mind-to-muscle connection with the opposing muscles to the hip flexors; the glutes & hamstrings in this case.

Once we had worked through the different strength exercises for hamstring activation, it was time for the good stuff, the actual hip extension work. As someone with a strong background in front split training, I was eager to see how I’d get on with some of these and just how intensive they would be.

There were some nice drills to cater to all levels on the build up, all of them being loadable and scalable, which I really liked.

(Oh and it was here that Garrett turned to me as he saw my logo on my shirt, and said, “wait, you’re Straight Talking Fitness?! No way, I’ve read loads of your articles man!” This was a cool and proud moment for sure.)

Anyway, the big boss was the banded front split/long lunge row though. This had me reliving the glory days somewhat as I found some nice active and passive ranges, with Garrett jumping in to lend a helping hand….

In between these super practical drills was some nice theory on how to test for hip rotation, hip flexion and hip extension – in a very clinical sense where there’s no compensation from the lumbar for hip extension or flexion, and no lateral flexion of the spine for external/internal rotation.

While much of this is easily found on the web it was nice to have it all laid out as a reminder, and to be able to take our partner through these assessments.

Day Two – Hip Flexion (aka forward folding/hamstring length), External Rotation (aka side split work/prep) & Shoulders/Spine!

‘Hip flexion’ encompasses some really sought after positions such as deep squatting and folding forward; two motions that can be stubborn for many. And this is where we started day two, with a few really innovative combos to mobilise a deep squat.

Once again these drills were more active in nature and definitely more than just ‘stretching your ankles’. The beauty being the likelihood of retaining the position is much higher.

When it came to hamstring length/forward folding, Garrett approached it from the perspective of the hip and pelvis first, rather than just loading us up with heavy jefferson curls until our hamstrings just give up fighting.

We had to learn and be aware of what our pelvis and hip should be doing – internally rotating & anteriorly tilting in this case – something that’s hard to keep strict on and really highlights how much you can be compensating from other areas, in order to fold deeper if you’re unaware of this. And thus, you could be hindering your results.

You know the guy/gal who ends up getting better and better at flexing their spine, but still barely gets 90 degrees at the hip in a strict hamstring test? That was me for years. Guilty as sin.

We then shifted to work on the adductors, with drills to lengthen them while strengthening them in the new lengthened range.

The first movement we delved into was the uncommon and below the radar, ‘Copenhagen Plank’. Garrett’s uses this to load the adductors up while using your bodyweight to leverage more range. The movement works really well as you can almost hyper-regulate how much exact force to put through the stretched leg. And for someone like me (a good responder to higher loaded stretches), this worked a treat.

Although it did highlight how weak my adductors are/seemed in their very end range. As did the next move we uncovered, the adductor fly!

Some of the guys were using some impressive weights here, with 12 kilo kettlebells being hung on people’s feet, as well 16 kilo kettlebells in some cases!

I tried 8 kilos and had to be helped out of the position after getting stuck at end range. But hey, it just shows you what to work on and where your limitations are. I’ve been using the adductor fly since as part of side split conditioning and have been slowly adding weight and range where I can.

From there, we aptly shifted into external & internal rotation of the hips – actions that can make or break your side splits. First we assessed our ranges clinically and I took notes of all my scores, with the idea of retesting sometime in the future and seeing the scores improve.

We shall see!

For hip external rotation, Garrett covered a lot of the drawbacks to some of the commonly used external rotation stretches, used by the masses, such as the 90/90 sit and the yoga pigeon stretch. His point being, many of them are done with a closed knee and compensations happening elsewhere. Whereas the goal is to open up the hip and knee angle as much as you can, even if it means using blocks to prop the knee up.

And as has been the case throughout, these drills were progressed through more and more load.

Then we took a look at internal rotation of the hip, and it was nice that Garrett explained the importance of this but didn’t put it on the pedestal many movement gurus do….

He didn’t tell us more hip internal rotation would fix our dry streak. Or Grow our dicks. Or double our salaries.

Instead we went through some practical moves to free the range up and then strengthen the joint action.

This whole section was tied up nicely with a little play around with the infamous dragon squat – a squat pattern heavily reliant upon one’s external rotation strength and capacity. This was a nice way to round off all the work we’ve done.

Shoulders & Spine!

Sunday afternoon was dedicated to my tightest and most problematic area; shoulder and spine mobility and mechanics. Once more here Garrett broke it all down nicely from the perspective of the right muscular sequencing. We tested the strength of our serratus anterior, as this muscle is responsible for initiating the first 90-100 degrees of shoulder flexion.

It’s also very common to have discrepancies between sides with the serratus. Many people on the workshop reported having notable differences when we worked uni-laterally. Interestingly I have little to no differences between sides and have a reasonably well functioning serratus. Which is unusual as my body is nearly always imbalanced when it comes to shoulder health/function.

After this we looked at the higher angles of shoulder flexion (between 100 and up to 180 degrees or more), and the big hinderer of this range is the tightness of the lats. In typical Garrett fashion, his lat stretches were super concentrated and strict, and really highlighted how much you often compensate from the obliques, the QLO, the T-spine etc.

So often we stretch overhead with various moves like the hanging cobra, butcher’s block, side bend lat stretch but end up not optimally stretching the lats, that are usually the bottleneck of overhead mobility progress.

The last 10-20 degrees of absolute shoulder flexion/overhead flexibility come from extension of the thoracic spine and internal rotation of the shoulders. These were the last 2 areas we looked at. Internal shoulder rotation is another easily butchered motion, as it’s so easy with moves like the sleeper stretch to not have the shoulder blade in the right position; which should be depressed & slightly retracted.

When you get it right though and with a little tip from Garrett of driving the non stretched shoulder forwards, while at max stretch on the stretched shoulder…..GAME CHANGER. These little tips are worth their weight in gold and are only things you can get from these type of workshops.

The thoracic spine was broken into extension and rotation, which was nice to see as so many forget or overlook the role of rotation in the overall context of thoracic mobility. The key is ensuring you’re actually mobilising thoracic rotation and not just rotation from anywhere.

For extension we followed a common theme; working through more and more loaded thoracic stretches. Starting with box drills, then wall drills with the ultimate end game being the loaded barbell stretch, with or without a partner.

Closing thoughts, key takeaways, value for money & could it be for you?

All in all this was a great trip and great workshop alike. It was just what I wanted. At first I wasn’t sure if we would be delving into all the classical gymnastics strength training moves, like one arm chin ups, handstand push ups, press handstands and the rest.

Which is all well and good but I’ve done loads of those type of workshops, and most of the time it’s a case of just applying yourself with the drill to suit your current level, within the movement pattern of choice. Sure there are technical aspects that a trained eye may only pick up on, but usually you can’t do said skill because you’re not strong enough in the specific places you need to be – and that’s because you’ve not trained it consistently enough at the right level.

Whereas Garrett’s material was far more educational. Ankles are an area I’m quite ignorant on if I’m being brutally honest, so it was great to learn more about this complex but crucial joint. Furthermore, so many of Garrett’s drills and teachings were applicable i the real world. Meaning you can use them with day to day clients, not just that one kid who wants a front lever or a muscle up.

This material helps you mobilise tight areas, problem shoot painful positions and just be much more knowledgeable all round. The only caveat to this would be those who don’t have an already sound anatomical knowledge and understanding.

A lot of the drills and theory required at the very least a basic knowledge of general anatomy. So you would definitely say this kind of workshop isn’t one you could just ‘go along for the crack’ with.

The biggest marker of all though is whether you use what you learned since, be it with clients and with your own training/practice. And for me the answer here is YES and YES. In both cases I’ve seen really nice results so this answers the questions beyond any doubt, as far as I’m concerned.

Believe it or not, this was Garrett’s first ever workshop and he’s since done a few more with stops in Belfast & New York to name a few. And I’m sure he’s lining up more places as we speak, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled if anything you’ve read so far strikes a chord with you.

Lastly, a big thanks to Ollie for putting the idea my way in the first place and being a great travel partner all weekend, looking forward to more in the future for sure! And a massive thanks to you for reading.