The TRX Hinge is an intense and unique exercise for challenging the anterior core and for teaching separation of hip and spine movement. Your TRX should be adjusted to mid length, with your shins in a vertical position and your feet shoulder-width apart. Drive your hips forward and roll-out into a plank position with your hands out in front of you. Keep your core braced throughout the full range of motion.

Your hips should initiate your return as though there were a string tied around your waist to pull you back to the start position. This return will most likely be more of a challenge than the roll-out, so make sure you save some gas in the tank to bring you back home.

For an expansive exercise library featuring over 50 different TRX exercises and a 12-week progressive workout program, check out the TRX FORCE Tactical Conditioning Program.

As a coach and athlete visiting from another fitness planet, Planet Maximum Muscle, Power and Strength, when visiting TRX world, I made it a point to study the techniques and tactics that have made TRX the undisputed success it is.

I was fortunate to have TRX Head of Human Performance Chris Frankel forward to me a suitcase full of TRX videos that ran the instructional gamut from general fitness to specific sport specialization. The tactics used in each video had an admirable thematic training consistency: more philosophic and structural commonalities, video to video, sport to sport, then distinctions and “particularities.”

Vladimir Nabokov once observed that “Artists are concerned with distinctions and particularities; unlike scientists who search for commonalities that can be developed into thermos and laws.”

TRX Training commonalities create a cathedral of structural similarity. When viewing the TRX instructional videos en masse, there emerges a distinct training theme. Protocols are identifiable and similar and linked philosophically and practically. These themes appear and reappear, video to video, regardless the sport, theme or audience.

It occurred to me that TRX could be used in an outside-the-box way. These same potentialities I pondered were being pondered by my TRX partner-in-crime, Dr. Mike Davis. It occurred to Mike and me in about the same time that there may exist a parallel universe of procedural protocols and possibilities for an existing fitness tool: the TRX Suspension Trainer. This struck us both as fascinating. We could chart in uncharted territories, explore unexplored avenues of physical possibilities.

Interestingly, Mike had come to the same hypothesis, completely independent of my own musings. Could the TRX device become a “hardcore” resistance training tool? Mike had been using his TRX in unorthodox ways for a long, long time. With my complete encouragement, Mike has woven TRX into the fabric of what we have dubbed “long-chain, non-conflicting, high-intensity resistance training exercises strung together back-to-back and done in non-stop fashion.” Or, in our lingo, hardcore resistance training exercises done Mega Giant Set fashion.

It occurred to me while watching the individual TRX videos that the ever-present coach (there is always a coach present in every TRX video) could do more than direct and exhort. The TRX “hardcore” video coach I visualized in my mind’s eye would step in and administer some hypertrophy-inducing partner-assisted, increased-payload reps. He would add some odd, outside-the-box training tactics specifically designed to build low-end torque, power and strength. The hardcore coach could provide “reverse forced-reps” to the TRX trainee; the hardcore coach could direct the protocol, pace and procedures of the hardcore workout. The hardcore coach could provide additional resistance in specific amounts at specific times in specific exercises to barely achieve specific reps.

One quick example: how about exerting downward pressure via the coaches hands on the loaded shoulder of the athlete coming erect during a one-legged pistol squat? Talk about excruciating and excruciatingly effective. In our hardcore world, we prefer to make our resistance exercises as hard as possible. It seems as though the rest of the world seeks to make resistance training easier – is this not an irresolvable contradictions in terms? Easy resistance? How could that possibly trigger any type of hypertrophy?

One way to make any exercise harder is to utilize an extended or exaggerated range-of-motion. Short rep strokes yield partial results; full rep strokes yield maximum results, on account of maximum muscle fiber stimulation. Most basic TRX exercises can easily be “payload-compounded” and paired with “intensity-amping” techniques and tactics. Plus, we have various coach-resisted and coach-assisted pushes and pulls along with some weighted vest work and “compromised leverage isolation drills.”

The TRX hardcore resistance coach purposefully impedes or hinders the athlete as he seeks to complete the assigned reps for the proscribed number of sets in any given exercise. The coach can also assist the athlete and help the athlete to complete more reps then he would or could on his own. The hardcore coaches job is to be able to add or subtract enough additional resistance so as to make the final reps at the end of each and every low rep set (3 to 10 rep sets) excruciating and barely completed. Unfortunately, there is a direct correlation between “excruciating” and “barely completed” and tangible progress.

Barely finishing, struggling with the last of the assigned reps while working in the low end of the rep possibilities is the secret to gaining absolute strength. Barely completed low rep sets are where the muscle and power gains lie. Acquiring significant amounts of pure power (always handy in athletic situations) is best achieved using a steady diet of ultra-basic exercises and an armada of intensity amplifying tactics – including full range of motion exercises, long pauses, various overloads, self-administered and partner-administered forced reps, drop sets, negatives, assisted reps – tactics designed to push past capacity.

Be mindful that capacity is different on different days. The goal is to trip the hypertrophy switch, and this occurs when the body is stressed past capacity. what is 100% capacity on a bad day might only be 78% of capacity on a good day. Exceed capacity on a bad day and you still trigger hypertrophy. Come up short of capacity on a good day, and waste an opportunity.

There exists an exclusionary mindset (as opposed to a “Big Tent” inclusionary mindset) amongst strength intelligentsia on one particularly contentious topic: “What is strength? How do we define it?” Strength, we contend, should be sub-divided into two distinct types or categories:

• Absolute strength: exemplified by the ability to pick up maximum poundage once
• Sustained strength: exemplified by lifting light or moderate poundage endless reps

My old Zen power lifting coach would prod us, “Is it better to lift 40 pounds 100 times? 100 pounds 40 times? Or 400 pounds one time?”

In Iron Budo, sport Zen, the sound of one hand clapping is a face slap.

“The correct answer is – It is best to master all three!”

Nowadays, strength coaches tend to champion either absolute strength or sustained strength. Optimally, each needs to be practiced, in tandem, stable-mates for eternity.

“Not one! Not the other! Both!” The Zen Budo Master led by example: one of his deadlift assistance exercises was to wear a 50 pound weighted vest and do 50 reps in slow-motion “mini-wheel” roll outs. These were done on his knees using one of those dinky little exercise wheels with handles on either side; he would roll out, gently touch his nose, then roll back up, using concentrated, pristine technique, this weighing 265. The vest roll-outs were done after 12 sets of maximum weight deadlifts and power cleans up to 275 x 5 thrown in for desert. The Iron Budo Master felt the roll-outs helped coordinate and link torso muscles from neck to crotch: his 800 pound deadlift was proof positive that he was onto something.

We want the ever-present TRX video coach to periodically morph into a TRX hardcore resistance training coach and offer up some “hands-on” tactical assistance designed to drive those TRX reps downward! The key to shifting TRX from a sustained-strength-building machine to an absolute-strength-building machine is simple: find ways in which to make an exercise difficult, if not impossible, to perform past 10 reps. Sets barely made in the 1-10 rep range have been empirically proven as optimal for creating maximum athletic power, maximum absolute strength and maximum muscle size. As Iron Immortal Bill Pearl would say, “Does the muscle really care what mode is used to stress it past capacity? The important thing is to successfully stress the muscle past capacity – the mode is of secondary importance.”

We seek to open to the TRX user an entire new universe of exercise and improvement possibilities. We will expand the arsenal of the implement. Through the use of partner-assisted forced reps, weighted vest usage and other intensity-amping techniques, we take an incomparable sustained-strength-inducing device and convert it into a hardcore, muscle-building absolute strength-building device.

Purchase your TRX Suspension Trainer here.

The TRX Group Suspension Training Course provides you with the skills and experience that will keep you competitive and relevant in the ever changing tides of the commercial fitness industry. TRX and small group training have gained huge traction in the past few years and this course is the definitive solution for any fitness professional looking to add TRX to their group training arsenal.

Instructing a large TRX Suspension Training class can be dramatically more nuanced and intricate than most other modalities of group exercise. This course is designed and instructed by the experts, using the tried and true best practices gleaned from years of experience teaching TRX in a group setting. This class gives you real, hands on experience and guidance as well as an action plan for implementing these skills in your career.

After this course you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of TRX Group Suspension Training and will be able to design and instruct your own classes. You will learn two different styles of TRX Group training: Body Blast which uses music as the framework for your classes, and Circuit Training designed around a timed interval.

Watch this video to hear the story of Callie, a TRX Group Suspension Training Course graduate, who has found big success in her career with the tools she learned from this course.

Sign up for your course here.

This off-snow TRX triplex will help you keep your conditioning edge, maximize your on-snow performance and minimize your risk of injury.

Although the snow is a bit “thin” in some resorts in the western US, and many TRX snow athletes are simply not getting enough on-snow riding, everyone can benefit from a little conditioning prep.

Fact 1: If you are not getting enough turns in, you need to condition off-snow.
Fact 2: If you are riding to your heart’s content and the snow is epic… you need to condition off-snow!

So grab your TRX Suspension Trainer and perform 12 to 15 reps of each of the following exercises, for one to three sets, two to three times a week.

1. TRX Bilateral Squat to Traveling Power Squat
Lateral traveling squats help snow athletes maintain muscular endurance and some anaerobic capability, not to mention body control and deceleration capability. These qualities result in better skill execution, ward off fatigue and lessen the likelihood of being injured because of premature fatigue. Build your leg endurance and power and cut through the on-snow day at full capacity. Run your reps quick, hard and precise with regard to landing capability, and you will realize full benefit and drive metabolic cost.

2. TRX Single Leg Lunge with Rotation
Single leg lunges with rotation help to equalize strength, balance, landing capability and rotary movement on both sides of the body. SL lunges help an athlete avoid one side dominance, which leads to poor performance, low level skill execution and increased risk for injury. Equalized movement capability on both sides of the body is critical to high level output. Increased thoracic and lumbar mobility is another positive outcome and helps lessen back discomfort and injury potential.

3. TRX Pike with Runners
Pike with runners help to maintain muscular endurance in the upper body, equalize movement on both sides of the body and develops the ever necessary core strength and stabilization ability for on snow training and play. Increased upper body strength from holding a strong plank position can even help one to get up from a fall, move around effectively with your poles when going to the lifts or powering out of a start gate.

You may not be on snow as much as you like this season but doing two to three sets of this triplex, at least two times per week, will go a long way in prepping you to maximize your next on-snow experience!

If you’re looking for more ways to build strength and flexibility so you can maximize your time on the slopes, check out our Winter Sports Conditioning download.

Douglas Brooks, MS, is the Director of Programming for both BOSU and RealRyder Cycling. The ex-Ironman triathlete is currently the Director of Athlete Conditioning for Sugar Bowl Ski Academy (www.sbacademy.org). In 2007, Douglas was inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame, and in 2008, he was honored by Can-Fit-Pro as the International Presenter of the Year. Coach Brooks is the author of eight books and is a Twist Sport Conditioning Senior Coach.

My fiancée was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia a few years ago. I have been experimenting with different techniques to use with the TRX Suspension Trainer to help her because with this condition, her muscles are much weaker and have a tendency to tear easily. Any suggestions on how to help? In particular, it would be beneficial for her to strengthen her core muscles, since that’s where she is weakest.

Answer:

Fibromyalgia is a condition that involves pain throughout the body, especially in the joints, muscles, tendons and spine. The pain can affect some parts of the body, such as the neck or back, more than others at any given time. Patients report stiffness throughout their body and joints. People with Fibromyalgia tend to wake up with body aches and stiffness, which generally improves during the day with activity and gets worse at night, although some patients have pain constantly throughout the day.

There is no definitive “cure” for Fibromyalgia. Treatment involves managing the symptoms of pain and other symptoms in order to live a more functional life. These treatments can involve physical therapy, cardiovascular and fitness training exercises, stress relief, improving the sleep cycle and possibly medication. Eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, avoiding caffeine and regular acupuncture treatments are also strategies that may help some patients with symptoms of Fibromyalgia.

The TRX Suspension Trainer is an excellent tool for general body fitness, and indeed, for helping to manage the symptoms of Fibromyalgia. Exercises using the TRX can help with cardiovascular, strength and core fitness goals in patients with Fibromyalgia. In general, patients with Fibromyalgia who exercise regularly feel fewer pain symptoms and are more functional than those who do not exercise regularly. It is well known that exercise involves the release of endorphins, which can help decrease generalized pain of any kind in any given person.

She should start with basic TRX exercises and move through progressions as her body allows. Here are some basic core stabilizing exercises that she can try initially on the TRX Suspension Trainer:

• TRX Torso Rotation
• TRX Resisted Rotation
• TRX Standing Hip Drop
• TRX Crunch
• TRX Lower Back Stretch
• TRX Quadruped
• TRX Plank
• TRX Supine Plank

My advice for any Fibromyalgia patient would be to begin slowly in order to see how her body responds to exercise. The target should be a minimum of 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise per day three to five days per week and at least two to three days of strength/core training per week. As her body strength and endurance tolerates, she can gradually build up to these goals and even exceed them. She should seek the guidance of her physician to help her manage the dynamic and often changing symptoms of Fibromyalgia.

Have a question for the TRX Doctor? Email askthedoc@trxtraining.com. For more on how TRX Suspension Training bodyweight exercise is a safe, scalable and effective solution for you or your patients, visit our Sports Medicine page and download our White Paper. Be sure to check the Blog every Thursday for another TRX Sports Medicine post.

NOTE: Any medical information in this blog is of a general nature and not a substitute for the advice of a medical professional. If you need medical advice, see a doctor.

The TRX Single Arm Row is an advanced upper body exercise that can be used to develop unilateral strength as well as present a unique core, arm and back challenge. Your wholly body is engaged while executing this movement in order to resist rotation making it incredibly efficient and effective.

The TRX Single Arm Row starts with the working arm pulled firmly to your side. Your body should be a solid standing plank, with your core braced as if you were about to get punched in the stomach. Lower your body down in one smooth controlled movement. At the bottom of your row pause for a brief isometric contraction and reengage your core.

Your row should be driven by the lat and arm, and your shoulder should be locked down and back as you begin your pull. Your shoulders, hips and knees should form a straight in line, and your chest and hips should reach each end range of motion at the same time.

This exercise can be made more difficult by narrowing your foot position to add more instability or by bringing your feet closer to the anchor point which increases the percentage of your bodyweight you have to lift.

For an expansive exercise library featuring over 50 different TRX exercises and a 12-week progressive workout program, check out the TRX FORCE Tactical Conditioning Program .

Besides the extra encouragement and motivation, working out with a partner taps into our primal competitive spirit, forcing you to work that much harder to either keep pace or surpass the efforts of those around you. How many times have you been running on a track or trail, and out of the corner of your eye, you see someone gaining on you, and what do you do?? Like Seabiscuit, you speed up and put it into overdrive. You can apply this same approach to your training, using your partner to push you to work a little bit harder. Partner drills also allow you to manage work to rest ratios and build exercise volume/intensity… not to mention they’re a great way to mix up your current staid routine and work up a sweat with a friend.

The following four partner drills can be enjoyed by all users, at all fitness levels:

The idea here is to really push yourself but also each other. Think high energy, high intensity. And if your partner is slacking, don’t be afraid to let him know.

Want more? Check out this sweet TRX Valentine’s Day Workout, as well as these four TRX partner drills by strength coach Doug Balzarini.

The TRX Atomic Push-up Tempo Challenge incorporates the unforgiving tempo of a metronome to test the skills you have built with the 40/40 and Mission Readiness Challenges. The cadence of the metronome should be roughly one click per second. The second hand of a clock will suffice if you don’t have a metronome, but you will need to set it up somewhere it is clearly visible so you don’t have to strain your neck to see it.

Time your atomic pushup so you hit one of the four end positions at every click of the metronome. One atomic pushup should look like this:

Second 1: Bottom of pushup

Second 2: Top of pushup (Plank)

Second 3: Top of crunch (knees past 90degrees)

Second 4: Top of pushup (Plank)

Each rep takes a total of four clicks of the metronome. The challenge is to execute as many reps as you can while hitting each end position on the same tempo as the metronome. The TRX Atomic Pushup Tempo Challenge requires that you hold the most difficult positions for a short isometric contraction. In this way it is different from the 40/40 challenge or the Mission Redlines Challenge where the objective is simply to achieve as many reps as possible at the tempo you chose.

Post your scores to the comments.

If you want another TRX challenge, check out our Instant Video Downloads for and DVDs.

The TRX Suspension Trainer’s proprietary single anchor point design and equalizing loop provide a unique means to train mobility and stability simultaneously. The TRX Clock Press may look like a chest fly/press hybrid, but it’s a tremendous core challenge and one of numerous Suspension Training exercises that can be used to integrate controlled instability into your training for big results.

When you perform the TRX Clock Press you extend one arm away from your body while completing a classic chest press movement with your other arm. Throughout the movement, your core should remain braced, like you’re about to take punch in the stomach.

At the bottom of the movement (the mid-point), it is extremely challenging to maintain equal pressure on both handles to prevent the straps from slipping. On your first few attempts, the straps will likely slip slightly. This slip provides proprioceptive feedback that should remind you to engage your core at all times—the more stable your core, the more mobile you will be at your extremities, in this case the arm performing a fly movement.

The TRX’s single anchor point design and equalizing loop allow you to challenge your stable core, safely, without fear of losing control and injuring yourself if you don’t perform the movement correctly out of the gate. In the process of mastering the movement, you’ll experience a challenge that delivers a 3-D training effect you’ll feel throughout your entire body, not just your chest. Getting a bigger training effect in less time is part of the simple beauty of TRX Training—you train your whole body as an interconnected series of kinetic chains, just as it moves in sport and life.

If you want more time efficient workouts check out the TRX Essentials Bundle. Apply the concept of controlled instability to your next TRX workout.

By Marty Gallagher

Hardcore Resistance Training: TRX’s Final Frontier?

The validity of TRX as a concept, tool and tactical approach for improving “fitness” and increasing human performance is beyond dispute: combine a serious resistance tool with an equally effective cardio/sustained-strength device and make it maximally portable, and you have a world beater; the fulfillment of the old Chinese adage, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” The path to the TRX doorway has been worn smooth.

In order for a legitimate fitness tool, supplement, training idea or fat loss diet strategy to survive and prosper, that idea must ultimately deliver on its promises. The initial goal of any legitimate fitness product is to survive long enough to gain traction and to ultimately create a large following of avid, satisfied, result-receiving repeat users: clients, students, customers, people who love the product or the idea and love it for one reason and one reason only: the product delivers tangible, measurable, irrefutable results. In real fitness, real results and survival are inexorably linked.

Converting first time users into long-term clients requires mathematically verifiable, non-subjective, objective physical results. Since the name of the game is “fitness,” we define results as “favorable changes in the user’s body composition and/or a dramatic improvement in athletic performance.” Experience has shown these two goals are linked.

We seek progress from our fitness products. We seek progress in all of the physical activities we engage in. Progress is defined as exceeding current physical limitations and performance benchmarks, in some manner or fashion. Progress can also manifest as a dramatic improvement in body composition: we seek to add lean muscle and reduce our body fat percentile. We recognize that progress has many flavors and guises, and that progress (and capacity) is an ever-shifting target.

Progress is our most important product. To induce progress, we seek to exceed current capacities and limitations over a wide range of categorical benchmarks. This is the eternal goal of true fitness. Progress occurs when we exceed or extend current personal bests and establish new performance benchmarks. When you exceed old standards and establish new personal records on a consistent basis, you concurrently morph the body. More muscle is constructed as stored body fat is mobilized, oxidized and melted.

When proper training and nutrition protocols are in place and practiced in a skillful, balanced and diligent fashion, physiological, psychological and metabolic momentum meld together to produce physical synergy. Synergy envelopes the athlete and creates transformative momentum. The momentum builds at an ever-accelerating rate, and results begin to exceed realistic expectations.

The athletic elite are privy to a little-known physiological fact. A physiologic sweet spot exists, a metabolic Nirvana, and access to this slim sliver, this Zone of Progress, requires a skillful blending of hardcore resistance training with intense, endorphin-producing cardio. Both training protocols are underpinned with nutrient-dense, regenerative, restorative nutrition. When all of the disparate elements are in place and practiced with due diligence, real results occur rapidly. We call this metabolic synergy, and after attaining this metabolic sweet spot, as long as the athlete retains what he has attained, as long as he does what he’s supposed to, he will stay precariously perched in perfect synchronized balance – and results will continue to occur at a dramatically accelerated pace. Sometimes the Zone lasts for months.

Very few products, ideas or strategies actually produce real results. That’s the sad truth. When a fitness-related product or idea is able to produce real results, radical results, irrefutable results, when that product or idea is able to produce results on a widespread, systematic and consistent basis, then that product or idea gains traction and most likely survives and thrives. The truth will eventually win out.

The core goal of elite fitness is (ultimately) to ignite a physical transformation. This is profound. We are forcing evolution. True transformation comes with a stiff price tag: gut-busting physical effort and nutritional sophistication and discipline, all overseen by an iron-willed sense of purpose that is politically incorrect in a big way in our “high self-esteem” times where everyone gets a participation trophy.

Many fitness devotees labor under a mythical illusion that there exists somewhere some magical system of fitness training that will allow them to do something that’s never been done: undergo a profound physical transformation with little or no physical effort. We all crave those amazing physical results, we just don’t want to go through all that physical hell to obtain them. There must exist somewhere a magical system of effortless training that delivers profound results. You just haven’t found it yet. Don’t worry. There are plenty of fitness “experts” willing to sell you transformation in a pill or bottle.

When you finally find this top secret training protocol, you will be able to attain mind-blowing results, a rocked-out body with tons of power, strength and stamina. You will look like the physical god you’ve always been in your mind’s eye. You can do so without having to exert any effort: no blood, toil, sweat and tears, no white-hot physical effort or iron-willed discipline for you. You get an exemption from the laws of physics and biology and Nature, laws to which the rest of us are required to adhere. Your magical method triggers a radical physical makeover without you having to break a sweat.

Wouldn’t it be great if sub-maximal workouts and sloppy eating produced stunning results? Wouldn’t it be great if bright and shiny, happy-go-lucky, smiley-face, talk-to-your-neighbor-while-you-train workouts resulted in incredible gains? We could gossip as we trained. We could catch up on all the neat stuff we’ve been missing and make nice new friends. We’d never have to get sweaty and yucky and smelly or take showers. After “working out,” we could sip cappuccino or imported beer and eat croissant sandwiches with extra mayo and fries with nacho cheese atop at the pub. We could ride home on our pink unicorns, back to our mansions on Candy Cane Lane to take naps and then have sex by the pool with our supermodel wives.

One key to fitness success is to always be clear on the goals. What do we realistically want and expect in return for all the intense and prolonged physical training we subject ourselves to? Intense physical effort triggers hypertrophy. We use hypertrophy to create more muscle and usable athletic power. We exert intense physical effort in our training. Hypertrophy occurs as a direct result of maximal effort, using the right tools and the right techniques, performing the right exercises and taking training efforts past the lip of the limits on an ongoing basis.

TRX survives and thrives. The protocols and procedures used in conjunction with this versatile, portable device have imbued irrefutable results on a widespread basis for a protracted period of time over the widest possible chronologic demographic. But as the old French WWI Nihilist torch/angst-song went, “Is that all there is?”

We have a new way to use TRX. We create heavy, taxing payloads. We find ways to add to the TRX athlete’s bodyweight during the actual set in a calculated effort to create muscular overload and trigger muscle hypertrophy. Next week, we’ll continue this discussion and turn towards training template specifics.

Purchase your TRX Suspension Trainer here.