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In TRX® Suspension Training®, every movement you execute during your workouts is a functional training movement. This is axiomatic when you train on the TRX, whether you're deconditioned and just looking to “get back in shape” or a professional athlete working with a strength and conditioning expert. But what does this mean, and how can you use this to your advantage to achieve the level of performance you're after in life or sport? On a very basic level, it means that when you train on the TRX, you train the body as it moves during life or sport, as a machine comprised of interconnected kinetic chains, none of which operate in isolation from any other part of the body.
Yet this definition is just a starting point, a gateway to a trip down an endlessly complex rabbit hole of sometimes conflicting training information available from professionals in the field, exercise physiologists and athletes themselves. What should you do? When should you do it? How can you achieve optimal results? There are many voices in the strength and conditioning profession and popular media, and it can be difficult to figure out who is saying something worth listening to.
But if your training endeavors or professional life have led you to look for more comprehensive information about functional training, why it's the best way to train and how to make the most of your functional training, then it's time for you to pick up a copy of renowned human performance expert Michael Boyle's new book, Advances in Functional Training. In AFT, you'll find every aspect of functional training covered thoroughly. The main topics covered include mobility, flexibility, injuries, the core, the hips, cardiovascular training, developing athleticism, equipment choices, exercises, program design and sample training programs with each of these topics broken down in detail.
The TRX gets a shout-out in the equipment selection section where Boyle recounts his initial reaction to the TRX: gimmick. Once he got on the TRX, he did a TRX Low Row and realized that a single TRX could replace a $3,000 machine spec’d just for performing rows. After spending more time on the TRX, he saw its utility for a broad variety of applications, writing, “Almost all of the exercises I thought were gimmicky are actually excellent variations or progressions. Elevated single leg squats, leg curls and roll outs are all outstanding on the TRX,” and concludes, “Trust me when I tell you to order a TRX and get to a TRX trainer workshop or schedule a TRX expert to train your staff on the variety of its uses.”
Boyle has arrived at his approach after decades of training professionals and amateurs, authoring articles, holding and participating in seminars and collaborating with other leading authorities in the field like Alwyn Cosgrove, Gray Cook and Mark Verstegen. If you want to have a better understanding of any aspect of functional training, athletic performance, mobility work, stretching, foam rolling or functional training program design for your own endeavors or those of your clients or athletes, this book is worth a read.
To order a copy of Advances in Functional Training, click here.
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In this video, educator Justin Price shows us how to use the TRX® to alleviate knee pain by stretching (both statically and dynamically) and strengthening the supporting muscles in the knee complex and mobilizing the hip and ankle complexes.
To purchase the TRX Biomechanics: Healthy Back DVD, click here.
Justin Price, MA, is a corrective exercise specialist and creator of The BioMechanics Method (www.thebiomechanicsmethod.com), which provides exercise solutions for people in chronic pain. He is an IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year and an educator for the American Council on Exercise, PTontheNET, PTA Global and the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
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You don't need to be in the Super Bowl to have a chance to win big
this Sunday, but you do need to become our fan on Facebook and post
your Train Like the Pros Challenge video entry.
To enter, simply post a video of your Super Bowl final score prediction with you performing reps for two TRX exercises that match your predicted score. The person who comes close to the actual outcome WINS!
The Grand Prize is a trip for two to San Diego for a private training
session with Drew Brees' trainer, Todd Durkin, an elite performance coach and owner of Fitness
Quest 10.
Everyone who enters will win the TRX Performance: Drew Brees Workout video download.
For official rules, go to the TRX Suspension Training Fan Page on Facebook
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"Your MRI looks worse than you do,” my doctor said to me after a
recent visit. After a torn ACL and cartilage damage I had suffered two
decades ago, I was given a diagnosis of “early” (because I’m relatively
young!) osteoarthritis. The effects of the degraded cartilage have
begun to manifest. The doctor was essentially saying that my left knee
MRI looks like it belongs to someone who is more limited physically.
She was surprised by my level of sport play and by the muscle
development I have in my legs. In fact, she surmised that the reason
I’ve stayed so capable is my devotion to developing leg strength to
support the knee.
What do you do when the knee breaks down? You
can't stop squatting and lunging. If you do it in life, you need
to train for it. Period. Over the years, I’ve worked with many people
who have knee pain. After a trip to the doctor, they are often given
glib, unhelpful advice like “don’t squat.”
Maybe stacking
hundreds of pounds on a barbell and vertically loading the legs in a
barbell squat isn’t the best approach with knee issues. But we still
need strong legs and stable knees.
Enter the TRX. To strengthen
the legs, there is no better exercise than a single leg squat. And with
the TRX, it can truly be for everyone. Consider walking: you spend the
majority of the time on a single leg! This means, with single leg
training, you can provide a very “real world” leg exercise experience
while at the same delivering a challenging load to the leg muscles with
a resistance you are used to – your own bodyweight.
The depth and
the speed of movement can be adjusted based on the appropriate skill
and fitness level. And with the TRX, you get the right mix of balance
help to allow better performance and stability if you need it. Single
leg squat variations, such as the TRX Single Leg Squat (below, top image) and TRX Lunge (below, bottom image),
are two terrific options for developing strong, capable leg muscles.
Another
important part of healthy knees is stability. A major knee stabilizer
is your hamstring muscles since they attach to the top of the lower leg
bones. A hamstring that is strong while it is lengthening (eccentric
contraction) is better able to keep the knee joint stable while
performing a wide range of ground-based activities. I’ve created a
great new TRX exercise to do just that.
The Swinging Hamstring
Curl (see below) is a terrific exercise to keep the hamstrings strong when you need
it most, which is while they are lengthening.
With
injured knees (or to prevent injury), it is best to perform a variety
of movements at a variety of angles and avoid excessive loads and/or
repetitive motions. The many options provided by the TRX for leg
training allow for maximum impact with minimum stress. I’ve used some
of the same exercises with obese clients after knee replacements and
athletes seeking better performance.
Jonathan Ross, ACE Personal Trainer of the Year, Discovery Health Fitness Expert, TRX Master Trainer and creator of the TRX Super Hero workout, brings a fresh perspective on fitness to the industry and the media. His personal experiences help him to create exercise strategies that deliver big results for clients. A former astronomer, Jonathan used to study stellar bodies... now he builds them! Click here to visit his website.
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Often times, finding the energy to just leave the house and start your day can be a challenge. If it's a healthy boost you crave in the morning, look no further than a warm bowl of Chai Blueberry Oatmeal. This Gourmet Nutrition recipe is easy to make and filled with enough iron and fiber to keep you healthy, satisfied, and alert all morning.
Chai Blueberry Oatmeal
Ingredients
Water 1 1/4 cups
Chai tea 1 bag
Old fashioned
large flake oats 1/2 cup
Flax Seeds (ground) 2 tbsp
100% Pure honey 1 tbsp
Low-fat milk 1/4 cup
Vanilla whey protein
(equal to 25 g protein) 1 scoop
Blueberries
(fresh or frozen) 1/4 cup
Instructions
Bring 1 1/4 cups of water to boil in a small pot on high heat. Remove from heat and steep a chai tea bag for 5 minutes. Remove bag and bring back to a boil. Add the oats. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until liquid is absorbed (approximately 7-10 minutes), stirring occassionally. Remove from heat and stir in flax seads and honey. Combine 1/4 cup of milk with whey protein in a separate bowl. Mix with a fork until protein is dissolved. For smoother consistency, pour protein mixture into a blender or food processor and blend until protein is dissolved. Pour protein mixture over oatmeal and serve. Serve 1 large or 2 small.
For nutritional information and more delicious, healthful recipes like this one, check out the Gourmet Nutrition Cookbook.
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by Todd Durkin, MA, CSCS
If I were the average Joe walking down the street, I probably wouldn’t care so much about the eating habits of other people. However, as a personal trainer, dedicated and passionate about helping people transform their lives and bodies, I’ve built my professional life on health, fitness and human performance. This means that the cornerstone of all my work is a balance between proper nutrition and exercise – for me and my family, for my clients and for my team. So, forgive me, but I do care. I care a lot! Here’s what got me thinking about your nutrition habits (more than I normally do).
An August 2009 issue of Fast Company (great magazine) includes an article on Darden Restaurants, owner of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, etc. Darden generated $6.7 billion in revenue last year by feeding 400 million meals in 1,770 restaurants. This is a giant restaurant company! You might be interested to know that even Red Lobster, home of popcorn shrimp and cheese biscuits, has decided to “revitalize” its brand to include what they call “stealth health.” In other words, they are adding all new wood-fired grilling plus fresh fish menus reprinted twice daily.
I read this article and had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” On the other hand, I said, “That’s it people – it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee!” Come on folks, do the restaurants have to stop serving up a diet of salt, fat and sugar for us to make better nutritional choices?
The moment of truth has arrived. It’s time to ‘fess up to the big question. DO YOU EAT NAKED? I do as often as I can. Sorry to disappoint, but when I say, “naked,” I mean food that is naked – not buried, covered up or disguised. Food that is fresh and nutritious and... well, naked!
My goal with this article is to persuade you to examine your eating habits, to say NO! to fast food, soda, processed foods, artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup and to say YES! to a lifestyle of healthy, nutritious and fabulous food. To do this, I’m not going to lecture you about the evil of fried and processed foods. I’m not going to scare you with details of nutrition labels that read like chemistry experiments (and food that probably tastes like one too). I’m not going to quote research about the effects bad food choices can have on your health. No, I’ve got a better idea.
I’m going to win you over from the dark side by reminding you of what you’re missing. Who doesn’t love fresh foods? Go to your local grocery store or farmer's market and check out the bounty: tomatoes, corn, zucchini, peaches, cherries, apricots, blueberries, strawberries, figs... and the list goes on. As a guy from the Garden State, I gotta ask, “How can it get any better than Jersey tomatoes and sweet summer corn?”
When I was at The College of William & Mary, a group of us went on retreat to Haiti with Fr. Charlie Kelley, the head of campus ministry at the college. This experience was a powerful one for me for many reasons, but one particularly vivid memory is of the local women with baskets overflowing with exotic fruit they carried on their heads for the five mile trip back to their homes. They fed their children from these baskets for a week. Years later, Melanie and I spent our honeymoon in Costa Rica. I couldn’t possibly count the number of mangoes I ate on that trip. I couldn’t get enough then, and I feel the same way now when we visit Hawaii. Tell me there’s a breakfast buffet at our hotel, and I’m there for the mangoes and pineapples!
Today, Melanie and I are raising our family with less red meat and white starches than I may have eaten as a kid, and fresh produce is front and center in our meals at home. Just like you, we want to be role models for healthful eating and nutritious food choices so that our kids grow up to be healthy and strong. Nowadays, our naked foods-of-choice might be blueberries and strawberries piled high on morning oatmeal, fruit smoothies we make in our Jack Lalanne Power Juicer, a handful of fresh spinach and other veggies in an egg white omelet or sliced avocados on nearly anything! We eat a lot of fresh fish prepared simply in the oven or on the grill and our frig is always stocked with a big variety of fruits and veggies.
Chris Mohr, a registered dietitian and nutrition expert, gives us an easy rule of thumb to use for selecting foods: “the less legs, the better!” Brett Klika, Director of Athletics at FQ10, recently wrote about the dangers of “Franken-foods” – referring to the chemistry experiments many popular food items are. I could go on and on. The advice is straightforward, and the message is simple. The idea of naked food is just a way to keep us mindful that when we take the best of natural ingredients and cover them with sauce, bury them in layers of fat, salt, sugar and chemicals or process them to death and put them in a bag or a box – we’ve ruined them. Think about it.
Just around the corner is spring, and you know what that means... outdoor farmer's markets with anything and everything your heart (or taste buds!) could desire.... so what are you waiting for? Eat naked. It’s a reward in itself.
Todd Durkin, MA, CSCS, is the owner of Fitness Quest 10 (www.FitnessQuest10.com) in San Diego. Additionally, he is the Head of the Under Armour Performance Training Council. He has appeared in 60 Minutes, on ESPN, the NFL Network, and been featured in Sports Illustrated, Business Week, Prevention, ESPN the Magazine, Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Men's Journal, Stack Magazine, Self, Shape, Fitness and the NY Times and Washington Post.
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Fitness Anywhere is pleased to announce the latest addition to our research team, Dr. Rajan Perkash. Dr. Perkash has been in private practice as a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation/Physiatry physician, specializing in Interventional Spine and Sports Medicine since 1998. He is the head of the Physiatry and Neurosurgery Departments at the Camino Medical Group Division of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Mountain View, California. He treats patients with minimally invasive spinal procedures, exercises, medications and other non-surgical modalities.
With Dr. Perkash on our team, Fitness Anywhere continues to validate the effectiveness of the TRX® Suspension Trainer™ for people of all ability levels. Whether you are recovering from an injury, managing a disease or disability, improving your health and fitness or training for high level performance as an athlete or military service member, the TRX® Suspension Trainer™ can help you reach your goals.
Wondering how the TRX can help with injury prevention? Here’s the Doctor’s response:
Rehabilitation exercises really represent a continuum from recovery from a specific event or condition to prevention of a recurrent of the ailment. Exercises which not only strengthen specific regions, but also active the core musculature in the process, can reduce the likelihood of injury in the future. Most activities in life and in sports are “functional” movements, which involve complex, multiple muscle groups throughout the body. As a result, any exercise program that activates multiple muscle groups in three dimensional space and engages the trunk muscles for balance has a greater likelihood of reducing injury in the future. The TRX allows for a wide variety of exercises for multiple muscle groups while at the same time conditioning the body’s core musculature for greater functional training.
Have a question for the TRX Doctor? Email askthedoc@fitnessanywhere.com today! We’ll be featuring these Q&As as regular blog posts going forward.
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Watch as TRX
Head Trainer Fraser Quelch takes two powerful movements, the TRX Overhead Back Extension
and the TRX Overhead Squat, and combines them for one intense move that creates
thoracic extension and improves postural strength.
View Video
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I've been on the TRX for three and a half years, and my work for Fitness Anywhere, Inc (FAI) has given me the privilege of picking the brains of our company's founder, our top trainers, FAI’s directors of programming and education, elite athletes who use the TRX and trainers and facility operators who use the TRX around the country.
Even with everything I’ve learned about the TRX and my 20 years of training experience, I walked away from the TRX Suspension Training Course (STC) last Sunday with loads of useful information that I'm already applying to improve my own training and that of my trainees.
The STC begins with a review of the basics of the mechanics of setting up and using the TRX and then covers the physics of Suspension Training. These are all ideas that I understand and have been putting into action for several years now, but the excellent instruction from TRX Professor Chris Frankel gave me the ability to describe the set-up and use of the TRX and the principles of Suspension Training more clearly, concisely and precisely than I had been able to prior to taking the course. And this was just the first two hours of the class. I learned a tremendous amount from my fellow 25 participants and got a window into how they train their clients and themselves on the TRX.
A diverse group that included a former pro baseball player, personal trainers, a retired power lifter and members of the Coast Guard among many others, they inspired me, gave me new ideas and provided feedback on my TRX movements that I found to be immediately beneficial. Frankel and Brian Bettendorf, director of FAI’s rehabilitation segment and our assistant instructor, provided numerous useful cues including tips on activating the lats in their entirety that made a notable difference in my execution of every movement on the TRX. Tips about properly initiating lateral lunges also yielded immediate improvements in my technique and corrected a problem I didn't even know I had. I also learned techniques for using the TRX to warm up, prepare for Oly lifting and numerous methods for progressing and regressing movements and intensity.
The highlight of the course for me was getting to revisit all of the basic TRX movements at the hands of a TRX Master Trainer. I learned multiple cue points for all of the basic TRX movements that positively transformed the efficacy of my own TRX movements, and I got to spend time reinforcing and mastering the cue points as I coached different partners on different exercises throughout the day. I have long been an advocate of staying totally focused during training time and paying attention to every aspect of each movement, but like everyone else, sometimes I just stumble into training and start banging out movements. The course was a great reminder to cut that trash training out and to really buckle down and focus on the small details that help yield the greatest results.
The greatest impediment to evolving your training knowledge is thinking you know it all. Personally, I never think that I know enough and constantly seek out the latest training and health research and techniques and test them out on myself and the athletes I work with. Whether you're a trainer, an enthusiast, an elite athlete, new to Suspension Training or just want to know more about getting the most out of your time on the TRX, I highly encourage you to take the STC. Whatever level of familiarity you have with the TRX, you'll walk away from the course with a comprehensive understanding of Suspension Training and the skills you need to put these principles into practice in your own training and for your clients. I'm glad that I finally made time to take the STC. My only regret about taking the course is I wish I'd done it sooner.
To find an upcoming STC,
click here. Already taken the class? What did YOU learn from the experience? Share your thoughts in the FAI Forum.
Andrew Vontz is a journalist and trainer who writes for Fitness Anywhere. He programs functional training for endurance sports and life at his website, www.drillit.tv.
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