Back in August, I attended the Perform Better Summit in Long Beach, Calif. And aside from gathering some great article ideas for Experience Life, I did my fair share of playing around with fun fitness toys. All in the name of research, of course.
One of my favorites was the TRX. For those of you not yet familiar with the TRX, we could call it a "bodyweight suspension training system consisting of 12 feet of nylon-webbed straps, handles, and various anchors that can be attached to any sturdy, weight-bearing base," as they'd like us to, but boiled down, it's essentially a rope with handles that you attach to a fixed point and use to do body-weight exercises.
It's a useful piece of equipment for just about anyone, because the user has control over the amount of body-weight resistance and stability based on what body angle and foot placement they choose. Another bonus: It's bang-for-your-buck, multi-muscle and -joint training because you're working in multiple planes of motion. Meaning, you can get a whole lot of work done in not a lot of time.
In fact, it's such a handy contraption that Men's Health named it the "Best Total Body Tool" of 2009. If you decide you must have your own, the TRX itself runs about $150, and a door anchor about $25. Or they sell bundles for less than that. Not bad for such an all-encompassing piece of equipment.
Here's video of our TRX instructor demonstrating how to do a Rotational Pull -- great for the core.
And here we are giving it a go. (Note: My videographer, one Jason C. Brown, kettlebell guru, didn't start filming till we were almost done, hence the somewhat-shoddy-looking reps. He was crap. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
For more TRX exercises, check out these videos.
And a challenge from Todd Durkin, owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego (coincidentally, this is where the USA women's 7s rugby team trained when we were in town for the USA Sevens tournament last February -- cool place).
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