The fitness industry is constantly evolving and changing and many Maritimers are now passing on dumbbells and treadmills in favour of a single strap.
The workout is called TRX, which stands for Total Resistance eXercise. Instructor Laurissa Manning says the principle is simple - it uses a person’s own body for resistance.
“Basically with the gravity training, it’s dependent on your weight,” says Manning, who works at a gym in downtown Dartmouth. “So, where your body happens to be in gravity, so the more of an angle that you’re at, the more body weight you’re moving or lifting.”
The training program was designed by a former Navy Seal who was looking for a lightweight, portable piece of fitness equipment.
“He created it for times when they were in safe houses and they couldn’t actually be out in gyms or working out. So they would take the straps and they could be hooked onto trees, doors, you can anchor them and they would do their bodyweight training using the TRX,” says Manning.
TRX participants can work every muscle group using the strap. Familiar exercises like squats, pushups, and lunges can all be modified to incorporate it.
Fitness instructor Lisa Moores says the biggest benefit is no matter what you’re doing, you’re using the core muscles.
“The core is always engaged, everything you do,” says Moores. “If you’re doing a suspended pushup, the most thing that you feel working to keep you in place, because you’re not balance, is working your core to keep everything strong.”
Nate-Janine Williams has been doing TRX for over a year. She likes the unconventional approach to getting fit.
“When it comes to fitness, for me, I like to step outside the box,” says Williams. “So, I figured this is the untraditional, not just lifting weights, you know, getting on a machine and I know from the research I did that it could work the core and the entire body.”
Manning says TRX is for everyone, from those new to exercise to elite athletes. Each maneuver on the strap can be adjusted based on fitness level and experience.
“For people who are just starting out, we’d start with both feet on the floor and we’d keep them in that sort of format,” says Manning. “For people who are a little bit more advanced, we might move into something called single hand mode, where the straps actually get intertwined and we would have one foot in the strap and you’d be doing balance work.”
TRX is also a great cardio workout.
“By moving from muscle group to muscle group quite quickly, where there’s very little rest, or by working those large muscle groups,” says Manning.
