Do the straps of your TRX Suspension Trainer ever rub against your arms and shoulders when you’re doing a TRX Chest Press? Isn’t that annoying?
Here to help you correct the problem is TRX Head of Human Performance Chris Frankel and one of the personal trainers at Park Road Fitness in Burlingame, California.
You may recall the term “scraping” from an earlier blog post on the Six TRX Sins. Scraping tends to happen when doing a TRX Chest Press with your hands too low, causing the straps of the Suspension Trainer to rub across your arms and shoulders. This is problematic for two reasons:
- When the straps are rubbing across your arms and shoulders, it's uncomfortable and annoying, distracting you from focusing on the movement and getting in a good set.
- The more your arms and shoulders rub, the less this move is accomplishing its intended purpose (improving core stability). As you may remember from the stability principle, the more points of contact you have, the easier an exercise is going to be, and the less you will be relying on your core to maintain a plank position.
So, how do you fix it? First, simply move your hands up in relation to your shoulders. Come to the top of the press and move your hands up until the straps are no longer touching your arms and shoulders. Shoot for two to three inches off of your arms. That way, you can get through a full rep without touching.
If after making this adjustment, the straps are still rubbing your arms, try externally rotating your hands, aligning the straps more with the inside of your forearms, instead of rubbing across the top of them. If you try that and find the straps are still rubbing, move your feet farther from the anchor point until you can get more comfortable stabilizing from your core.
Are you experiencing any issues you think might be compromising the effectiveness of your TRX workout? Let us know below.
