Im thinking about working out underwater...

That sure seems like you'd be removing most of the "bodyweight" idea... are you wondering about water workouts from a rehabilitation perspective?  What's your motivation? 

Actually this could be quite interesting if you were using the TRX completely underwater, with scuba gear. Working out underwater would increase the amount of resistance because water is 1,000 times more dense than air and moving through it it more difficult and requires much more efficiency than moving on land.

With the proper gear, one could do a TRX workout underwater.

 While it is certainly true that water is 1000 times more dense than air, there is one major drawback to consider... 

It's bouyancy creates a weightless environment

To counter act the bouncy and weightlessness you could use scuba gear to keep your self on the bottom. You would have to watch to make sure you don't get your cables and crossed or twisted, that would be bad.

Fraser,

I did an "aquatic" and "water" search on the site, just to see if anyone had already thought of something I'm going to try...

As a master's decathlete, I need to increase my plyo-jumping but avoid hard landings on the ground.

I also need to build my "load" incrementally, so...

What I thought I'd try is getting into the local pool during adult swim time, in the shallow end, about four feet of water or so. I'll hook the TRX up to one of the ladder handles and see if I can do the following leg exercises: Suspended Lunge; Single Leg Squat, Spinter's Start, and, perhaps some full squat jumps.Since I will have less resistance, I want to see if I can safely add the "leaping element" normally reserved for high-performance athletes, which would give me the plyo-like explosion, without the negative side-effects.

My wife and I are dedicated masters multi-event athletes, and the TRX has been a great addition to our training!

http://generalistgrant.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/praises-for-fountain-of-youth-workout-machine-trx/

This past Saturday, I had a great first meet of the outdoor season after strength training exclusively on the TRX, recording personal bests in the discus and  shot put (both marks met masters-level All-American rankings set by the USATF). I also ran well in the 100m, 400m, and pole vaulted, in the same meet. My wife, Claire, performed very well, scoring a PR in the 200M and reaching the All-American standard.

As we move forward in our training, with the national master's championships as our goal Aug. 15-16, the need to be safe and injury free is of topmost importance to us, hence, the idea for doing the "jump" workouts in the water. Any suggestions you can give would be helpful. Otherwise. I might try to video tape our efforts and send them to you. That is, if I don't drown!

granto:

Frasier,

I did an "aquatic" and "water" search on the site, just to see if anyone had already thought of something I'm going to try...

As a master's decathlete, I need to increase my plyo-jumping but avoid hard landings on the ground.

I also need to build my "load" incrementally, so...

What I thought I'd try is getting into the local pool during adult swim time, in the shallow end, about four feet of water or so. I'll hook the TRX up to one of the ladder handles and see if I can do the following leg exercises: Suspended Lunge; Single Leg Squat, Spinter's Start, and, perhaps some full squat jumps.Since I will have less resistance, I want to see if I can safely add the "leaping element" normally reserved for high-performance athletes, which would give me the plyo-like explosion, without the negative side-effects.

My wife and I are dedicated masters multi-event athletes, and the TRX has been a great addition to our training!

http://generalistgrant.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/praises-for-fountain-of-youth-workout-machine-trx/

This past Saturday, I had a great first meet of the outdoor season after strength training exclusively on the TRX, recording personal bests in the discus, shot put (both marks met masters-level All-American rankings set by the USATF). I also ran well in the 100m, 400m, and pole vault, in the same meet. My wife, Claire, performed very well, scoring a PR in the 200M and reacing the All-American standard.

As we move forward in our training, with the national master's championships as our goal Aug. 15-16, the need to be safe and injury free is of topmost importance to us, hence, the idea for doing the "jump" workouts in the water. Any suggestions you can give would be helpful. Otherwise. I might try to video tape my efforts and send them to you. That is, if I don't drown!

Let us know how that goes. It'd be interesting to see your findings. As far as the answer to the actual name of this thread; I wouldn't say the TRX is "waterproof", but if you used it in water, you would certainly want to give it ample time to air and dry out to avoid mold and the such. Being it is thick sewn nylon, it shouldn't loosen the threads I don't think, but thats of course only speculative until you try doing so one or more times...

 Hey Grant

 Congratulations on your first outing this year! Those are exciting results. I have to tell you that you are breaking new ground with using the TRX combined with your water workouts. You will have to let me know how it goes for you on the forum. You might also try doing some of those same exercises on a thick Airex mat or even two of them stacked which should cushion your impact. I think an Airex pad will be too much though putting you at risk for ankle injury and providing too much instability to generate the kind of force you are trying to train. Try it both in the water and on the airex mat(s) and let me know how it goes. :-)

 Good luck with your training!

Fraser,

Claire and I did our first water-jumping workout this evening with our TRX are very happy with the results!

Here's a video of our workout!

It was cool, it was fun, and we think we might have come up with something that can help add intensity at low risk of injury.

We were able to adjust quickly to the quirky balance issues in the water and both felt that we got a very good jumping-plyo workout in a short amount of time (six to eight reps per set was plenty for Day One). At 52 years old and just getting into the ballistic-jumping phase of our annual training schedule, the added bouyancy really made it possible for us to push ourselves with single leg and double leg jumps, allowing for an end of range explosion-flexion of our entire body, all the way through the second toe push-off, an explosive move that would have been risky on dry ground. I wore an old pair of cross trainers and Claire wore her water shoes. We couldn't have done it bare-footed, because the pool floor was slick. The angle of resistance on our TRX wasn't as steep for this same reason, lack of solid traction.We had the most success with the two-legged squat jump and the runner's start lunges, facing away from the anchor point.

Water jump training for track and field athletes isn't new, of course, but the TRX adds a measure of stabiilty that we really liked and afterward we felt as if our nervous systems and muscular systems had been really "jolted". Time will tell how it translates to dry ground jumping, but we think this is a smart way for us to get the jump training we need for the high jump and long jump. We will be going back to the pool for more jump workouts, probably once a week, for the rest of the summer season. We will probably increase our workload intensity and/or try adding weight vests or ankle weights, to increase resistance.

Thanks, Fraser, for encouraging us to try something different.

 

Fraser,

Here's the link to our blog post in which we recap our success at the USATF Masters National Combined Events Championships and, giving credit where credit is due, thank TRX for getting us to the winner's platform! Thanks for your encouragement, and for TRX!

http://generalistgrant.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/overstakes-capture-1st-3rd-at-usatf-national-masters-combined-events-championships/

Hey Grant

CONGRATULATIONS to both you and Claire!!

What an accomplishment and I'm sure a special moment for you both to stand on the podium in a national event together. We are honoured to have played a small role in your preparation. On a somewhat related note, our Italian master trainer Beniamino Poserina competed in the 96 Olympics for Italy and just last week I spent about an hour in the Air Canada lounge in Toronto talking to Michael Smith who still looks every bit as formidable as he did when he was competing in the 90's.

Anyway I am very proud of you both and thank you for keeping us all up to speed on your training on the community.

I hope that you've both scheduled a good bout of recovery and R & R post key event.

All the best

Fraser,

Thanks for the acknowledgement!

Yes, we're trying to take a month off for unrelated recreational activities, but that has included doing the TRX flexibility program a couple of times since the big meet, because it helps us stay limber and doesn't seem like work!

I would like to learn more about Poserina and his work with master's athletes. Where can we contact him? We plan to start training again in October, giving us three three-month periods of training before peaking at next year's nationals, in June. I need to lose about 15-20 pounds during that time, to be more successful in the running and jumping events, so that will be a focus of my training.

Interesting fact: We didn't lift any weights for six months leading up to our championships but were as strong as ever, thanks to our TRX workouts.

Best,

Grant