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Core Workouts: 15-Minute Fitness with Basheerah Ahmad and TRX
This 15-minute routine from Basheerah delivers maximum midsection results with minimal abs training gear. Perfect for anyone who wants to see awesome results on a tight schedule, this workout delivers incredible core strength, fast. Each exercise can be modified and progressed to accommodate any fitness level, so there is no need to be intimidated - jump right in!
Perform each exercise for 60 seconds with 30 seconds rest in between each exercise. When you are finished with all five exercises, repeat the entire sequence, for a perfect 15-minute workout. Take our quick fitness quiz to get customized exercise modifications based on your current level.
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TRX Planks (10 second holds/5 seconds rest) Get in a pushup position with your hands directly under your shoulders, and your feet in the foot cradles of the TRX Suspension Trainer. Brace your core and focus on keeping your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles all in line. Hold for ten seconds then drop your knees to the ground to rest for five seconds and repeat for one minute.
TRX Body SawsStart on the ground on your hands and knees with your feet in the foot cradles and your hands placed under shoulders. Get into a plank position with your forearms on the ground. Brace your core and make sure your ears, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles are all in line. Slowly rock forward and back just a few inches. Stop before you feel any strain on your lower back. Lower your knees to the ground to return to the start position.
TRX Hip AbductionStart on your back with your heels in the foot cradles of the TRX Suspension Trainer, and your hands palm-down pressing into the floor. Drive your heels into the foot cradles to lift your hips up into a plank position. Slowly separate your legs and until they make about a 45 degree angle. Pause for a moment, and then bring your feet back together.
TRX PikesGet in a pushup position with your feet in the foot cradles of the Suspension Trainer, directly under the anchor point. Brace your core and pike your hips up while letting your head drop between your arms, and moving your feet toward your upper body. Drop your hips back down under control, and return to a plank position.
TRX HingeStand facing the anchor point with the your arms extended in front of you pressing down on the TRX handles and your feet wider than shoulder width apart. Bend forward from the hips with a straight back, pushing your hips back and extending your arms forward. Drive your hips forward to return to the start position.
If you want more fat-burning, muscle-toning workouts from Basheerah and TRX be sure to watch the rest of the 15-Minute Fitness Workout series, here.

Core Workout: 15-Minute Fitness with Jay Cardiello
Get strong, lean, firm abs with this super simple, 15-minute core workout from celebrity fitness expert Jay Cardiello and TRX. Want to find the perfect core exercises for your fitness level? Take our quick assessment quiz to get a personalized ab-sculpting plan. Designed to for all fitness levels, these exercises provide the perfect punch of strength training for the midsection of your dreams. To maximize your core results, pair these exercises with purpose-built core training equipment like the TRX Suspension Trainer, and this workout combines all the best TRX has to offer.
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Perform each exercise for 60 seconds, resting for 30 seconds while you transition to the next movement. When you finish all five exercises start run through the sequence one more time for a 15-minute workout. For the first round perform the planks on your right side, then switch to the left for the second.
TRX Side PlanksLie on your side with your feet in the foot cradles and the heel of your top foot touching the toe of your bottom foot. Squeeze your core and glutes to lift your hips up, keeping your shoulders over your hand. Lower your hips to the ground to return.
TRX Body SawStart on the ground on your hands and knees with your feet in the foot cradles and your hands placed under shoulders. Plank up into a pushup position keeping your hands directly under your shoulders. Brace your core and make sure your ears, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles are all in line. Slowly rock forward and back just a few inches. Stop before you feel any strain on your lower back. Lower your knees to the ground.
TRX PikesGet in a pushup position with your feet in the foot cradles of the Suspension Trainer, directly under the anchor point. Brace your core and pike your hips up while letting your head drop between your arms, and moving your feet toward your upper body. Drop your hips back down under control, and return to a plank position.
TRX Mountain ClimbersAdjust the Suspension Trainer to mid calf and start on the ground with your toes in the foot cradles in a plank position. Draw one knee in towards you chest while raising your hips and keeping your other leg straight. Lower your hips down and straighten out your leg to return to the start position. Repeat with the other leg.
TRX Hip AbductionStart on your back with your heels in the foot cradles of the TRX Suspension Trainer, and your hands palm-down pressing into the floor. Drive your heels into the foot cradles to lift your hips up into a plank position. Slowly separate your legs and until they make about a 45 degree angle. Pause for a moment, and then bring your feet back together.
For more workouts from Jay Cardiello and TRX, check the rest of our 15-Minute Fitness Series.

Cool Combo: TRX Unilateral Exercise Sequence
Watch as TRX Head of Training and Development Fraser Quelch shows us an awesome unilateral exercise sequence on the TRX Suspension Trainer. Take our quick form assessment quiz for personalized tips on mastering these moves. He moves from a TRX Single Arm Raise to a TRX Biceps Curl to a TRX Triceps Extension to a TRX High Row, all performed on just one arm. This is guaranteed to light up the arm, chest and shoulder of the working side but the core as well.
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Why is unilateral training important? Each of us has a dominant body side. We throw better from one side, we kick better from one side, and, likewise, we're stronger on one side. Ever tried tossing a football with your non-throwing arm? If so, you've probably found it a very humbling experience. When we lift weights bilaterally (i.e., move the weight with both arms at once), our dominant side takes over during the exercise, causing a disproportion, however slight, in workout balance. So even though you think you're working both sides of the body equally, in reality, the dominant side controls the exercise.
Fortunately, we can train the weak side with unilateral training exercises like those in the sequence above. It targets our weak areas and activates nerves and fibers that force muscles to adapt and grow.
Give the above exercise sequence a shot and tell us what you think below!
Buy your TRX Suspension Trainer here.

Meet Zack: The Nice Guy Serving Up Tough Workouts
To take Zack Van Wagoner’s TRX LIVE classes is to know—with near certainty—that your arms are going to fall off. But in a good way. ZVW is a nice guy, but he does not mess around.
Born and raised in California, Van Wagoner moved from his hometown of Ceres to San Francisco for college. As a kinesiology major focusing on Exercise Science, it’s no surprise that Van Wagoner liked spending time at the gym. So, as many college students do, he got a job at one.
Van Wagoner started working the front desk at Crunch Fitness and was hired as a trainer after getting certified through NASM. After taking the TRX Suspension Training Course, teaching TRX classes at Crunch, and working his way up the ladder to becoming manager, he was ready for a different kind of challenge—one that required wearing lots of black and yellow.
Van Wagoner began teaching at the TRX Training Center—the real-life studio and TRX headquarters where most of the TRX magic happens—in 2015 and joined the education team in 2016. Today, he splits his time between coaching workouts and developing professional education and content for the company.
Lest you think that Zack is only bringing the pain, rest assured that he can handle any workout he dishes out. For his own routine, he gravitates toward strength and conditioning weight work, coupled with TRX Suspension Trainer exercises. His personal workouts often see a second life as his TRX class workouts. “Now that all the shelter in place stuff is happening, I’m back into my TRX-kettlebell-band work. I'm trying to use bands a lot more now.”
When he’s not working or exercising, Van Wagoner enjoys exploring the Bay Area with his girlfriend. “I've lived here for 11 years, and I still haven't seen everything.” Whether it’s checking out the restaurants and mural-covered alleys of San Francisco’s Mission District or crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to hike in neighboring Marin County, he’s always on the lookout for the hidden—and not-so-hidden—treasures of Northern California.
Like many of us during stay-at-home directives, Van Wagoner jokes that his hobbies are non-essential services and standing close to people, but he maintains a positive outlook. He’s still coaching. He can still go hiking. And he can still get his favorite burrito. (That would be at San Francisco’s La Taqueria, and Zack insists that you try it grilled, a.k.a. “dorado-style.”) Yes, Van Wagoner is a nice guy. Just try to remember that the next time you can’t lift your arms after one of his TRX LIVE workouts.

Coach Spotlight: Shana Verstegen
When you train with TRX Master Trainer Shana Verstegen, you’ll probably hear the Backstreet Boys during class. “I have a very unhealthy obsession with the Backstreet Boys. Anybody who knows me even a little bit knows that it's pretty bad,” she said. As for her favorite BSB track? That would be the 1997 anthem, “Everybody.” “I could listen to that on repeat for a week straight and not have a problem,” Verstegen admits.
In addition to being Madison, Wisc.’s most loyal Backstreet Boys fan, Verstegen is a six-time world champion women's professional log roller and boom runner, a gymnast, a Huntington’s Disease advocate, a wife, and a mom. To describe her as active is an understatement.
Verstegen’s march toward perpetual movement started as a kid. Her mother was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease when Shana was 5, and her parents wanted to make sure that Shana carved out time that was all her own—unrelated to caregiving for her mother. “I had gymnastics practice, I had log rolling practice, swimming practice, and that was kind of my time to be me and be physical. Through that, and through my parents encouraging me in that, I really fell in love with movements and sports.“
Verstegen remembers her father, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, telling her that helping other people move was a real job she could pursue. As a child, she was skeptical. “I always said, ‘Oh, you're kidding. That's not a real thing. That would be way too much fun. You can't get paid to help people exercise.’“
On Take Your Daughter to Work Day, her father proved her wrong. “After watching him teach, he took me to the kinesiology department at the University of Wisconsin, and introduced me to several kinesiology professors and [physical education] professors in that department. From that day on, at a very early age, I knew that I wanted to help people be active, because I knew of all the benefits it already had for me.”
Years later, Verstegen returned to the same building at the University and got a degree in kinesiology from some of the same professors. “Movement and fitness and sports and exercise—and the science behind it—has always been my passion,” she said.
Post-college—in addition to competing professionally in lumberjack sports—Verstegen coached track at Wesleyan University, and worked as a personal trainer in Beverly Hills. But Wisconsin was calling her home. Now back in Madison, Shana is still helping other people move.
“I love teaching the sport of log rolling to people. It is a sport that's kind of a great equalizer, and everybody gets a chance to feel successful. It's just fun to see people be outside challenging their balance, their strength, and acting as a community,” she said.
When it comes to coaching indoors, Verstegen says TRX can’t be beat.
“TRX is absolutely my favorite class to teach, because I can work with all levels. My classes are so much fun, because I have people who are every age. Our gym has a very diverse population: I have some senior citizens in there; I've got people that are coming from universities, who are athletes that are in there. It's so fun to be able to come in with one class plan and be able to modify it for all of those people in one hour, and give them all a really, really good workout.”
As for her own workout routine, it varies according to the time of year and which sport she’s training for. As a competitive lumberjack athlete and log roller, Shana spends a fair amount of time on a log in the water, either on the lake in Madison or at the pool in her gym. Year round, she lifts at least three times a week, and trains with her TRX Suspension Trainer, plus she runs, and she’s involved with an adult gymnastics program.
Between coaching, training, competing, and chasing her one- and four-year-old boys, Verstegen doesn’t have much free time, but she loves her fast-paced life. “I am loving, loving, loving watching them grow and learn and explore. There's been nothing more rewarding than doing things with them.”
Want to train with Shana Verstegen? Find her live and on-demand classes at TRXTraining.com/live

Challenge: Try This 15-Minute TRX Upper Body Workout
TRX Training
The TRX Suspension Trainer has devotees around the world because it’s an effective, adaptable tool for a full-body workout that anyone can use: whether you want to work less or more, all you have to do is adjust your angle. So what happens if you want to progress beyond steep angles and body weight? Does that mean you’ve outgrown your Suspension Trainer? Not at all! When you’re ready to take your training to the next level, simply increase your bodyweight by packing on the pounds… in an XD Kevlar weight vest.
A weight vest adds adjustable resistance to your Suspension Trainer upper body workouts. Need help finding your ideal training load? Take our quick assessment quiz. This 20-pound version lets you adjust weight in one-pound increments for the perfect challenge level.
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Although you can wear a weight vest for any TRX exercise, we love using this tool to give the lats, rhomboids, and traps some extra love. If you’re new to exercising with a weight vest, or just want some ideas for a quick workout, we’ve programmed a 15-minute upper body drill featuring a bonus-weight TRX Low Row, High Row, and Pull-Up triple threat, followed by a Strength Band finale. For this drill, try an every-minute-on-the-minute, or EMOM, approach. You’ll get a brief break, about 30-60 seconds, after each three-minute period.
Strap on your weight vest, adjust your TRX straps to the midway point. Your goal is to complete 8-10 reps of your TRX Low Row in one minute. If you have a balance of time on the minute, you get it for recovery. Repeat this one-minute challenge two more times.
Next, you’ll attempt 8-10 reps of the TRX High Row in a three-minute EMOM format, followed by a TRX Pull-Up EMOM three-minute drill. (Don’t forget to over-shorten your TRX straps for those TRX-Pull-Ups!)
Finally, set your TRX straps aside and pick up your TRX Strength Band to finish the set. We’re adding in a hinged row—with an optional tricep kickback—for your final move.
With the sides of the band touching to form a long line, step on the center of the Strength Band and wrap your fingers around the two rounded ends; like you’re gripping a handle. Hinge at the waist, and engage your glutes and lower back. With your elbow close to your rib cage, pull up on the rounded “handle” ends of the strength bands until your wrists meet your rib cage. To add a tricep element to this move, straighten your elbows and extend the “handles” back for a tricep kickback. Use the same 8-10 rep EMOM configuration as you did for the first three exercises, and repeat for three minutes.
There you have it: in 15 minutes or less, your upper body will be on fire, and you’ll be on your way to your strongest year ever. Remember, there are hundreds of ways to use your Suspension Trainer, whether you’re chasing strength, flexibility, or mobility, and you can always add to a Suspension Trainer exercise by increasing your load with a weight vest. Anybody, anywhere, anytime, the Suspension Trainer can be your training partner for life.

Celebrate Earth Day With an Outdoor Workout
Earth Day started in the United States in 1970 as an effort to rally support for environmental protection, and expanded to a global phenomenon in 1990. Today, 193 countries organize Earth Day activities each year on April 22.
Earth Day may be associated with advocacy and volunteering, but it’s also an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of nature. And what better way to do that than taking your workout outside? While outdoor exercise may not come with the calorie-burning monitor you see on machines at your gym, it’s loaded with perks for your mind and body.
Hiking
No matter where you live, chances are you have a hiking trail nearby. According to Health, hiking can burn up to 530 calories per hour, with an added 5 percent boost for hitting the trail in gusty conditions. WebMD notes that hiking lowers your risk of heart disease, improves your blood pressure and blood sugar levels, builds strength in your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and core, and boosts your mood. Gregory A. Miller, PhD, president of the American Hiking Society, adds "Research shows that hiking has a positive impact on combating the symptoms of stress and anxiety. Being in nature is ingrained in our DNA, and we sometimes forget that."
Swimming
Many gyms have a lap pool, but you can also get a great workout swimming outside. If the water’s a little chilly, that’s all the better. According to Lifehacker, cold water swimming boosts your immune system, improves circulation, burns calories, and reduces stress. If you have joint issues, swimming is appealing because it’s a non-impact sport, and it torches hundreds of calories. (For example, 155-pound person swimming freestyle for one hour will burn 704 calories swimming fast, according to Active.com), Remember that swimming in open water presents a unique set of dangers. Do your research before diving in.
Cycling
Does the pain and sweat from your indoor cycling class translate to better performance outdoors? Hop on a bike and find out! According to Bicycling, cyclists can burn up to 600 calories an hour; the total varies according to your weight, speed, and time. Mountain biking yields even more impressive results, while building muscles in your arms, back, chest, and core. You get a great sweat and great views at the same time.
Surfing
If you’re lucky enough to live near waves, get out and enjoy them. Surfing hits all the major muscle groups: you work shoulders and upper body while paddling, legs while balancing and guiding the board, and core throughout, SurferToday.com explains. It’s a tough cardiovascular workout, but in between heart-pounding runs, you get to sit on your board and take in the beauty of the sea. Like open-water swimming, you need to be aware of the dangers, so study up before you paddle out.
Running
Running is one of the most budget-friendly forms of exercise because the only equipment you need is shoes. And the benefits extend beyond your wallet! Studies show that running can help prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and some cancers, while improving your emotional and mental well being, according to Runner’s World. Plus, it’s a form of exercise you can do practically anywhere.
Regardless of which outdoor activity you choose for Earth Day, complement your workout with a few minutes using your TRX® Suspension TrainerTM. You can use it for your pre- or post-exercise stretch, or for supplemental strength training. With a TRX xTender, it’s easy to use a vertical anchoring point—like a tree trunk—to set up your Suspension Trainer outdoors.
Want to share your take on Earth Day fitness? Upload your photos or videos to Facebook or Instagram, and tag #TRX and #MakeItPersonal.

Understanding Your Vector Resistance
When using the TRX Suspension Trainer, there are three principles you can apply to modify exercise intensity: Pendulum Principle, Stability Principle and Vector Resistance Principle. Want to find the perfect TRX progression for your fitness level? Take our quick assessment quiz to get personalized exercise recommendations based on these key principles. Vector Resistance Principle applies to exercises that happen from a standing position. When standing straight up with your base of support directly beneath your center of gravity, your legs support 100% of your bodyweight. As your body angle steepens (as in the TRX Chest Press), your center of gravity moves outside your base of support and weight transitions onto the TRX, which adds resistance to the exercise. The steeper your body angle, the greater the resistance or intensity of the exercise.
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The chart below explains the vector resistance for all TRX exercises that happen from a standing position. Use this to make your exercises easier or harder, depending on your goals.

Building TRX Combo Exercises
The ability to combine individual exercises together to create movements like the TRX Atomic Push-up is an incredible quality of the TRX. Using the "stacking effect," there is almost no limit to the creativity that can be applied to creating new, integrated exercise. We refer to them as Cool Combos. Watch this video and start thinking about how to combine individual exercises together using the "stacking effect."
Fraser Quelch is Director of Programming and Education for TRX. He is also a featured fitness author and a competitive ironman triathlete.
