I’m always on the lookout for innovative exercise equipment which enables you to keep up your fitness anywhere without having to go to the gym or even leave the house, and recently I’ve come across the TRX Suspension System.
Like all the best home fitness equipment this is simple and non-gimmicky and can be fitted easily to a door frame, and you can also get a kit along with it so you can even fix it up to a ceiling or wall in your home.
What piqued my interest with the TRX fitness trainer is the latest fitness idea that seems to be sweeping the nation at present – learning circus skills. This may seem ridiculous and way out of the reach of everyday exercisers, but circus performers rank among the fittest and best conditioned athletes in the world.
All you have to do is go and watch the Cirque Du Soleil to marvel at what these athletes can do – especially the trapeze performers. Working with trapezes works your entire body; your core strength needs to be absolutely gobsmacking, and the strength of your arms, shoulders, back and chest need to be pretty spectacular too! Legs, thighs and butts are not forgotten either, making any kind of circus-based workout perfect for your whole body.
Now, I’m not saying we should all start swinging around on trapezes – not practical to the vast majority of us – but the TRX fitness programme takes in a lot of these principles and makes them possible for everyday exercise. With TRX fitness exercises you use heavy duty elasticated straps with handles to add resistance to exercises, and the accompanying video shows you how to do around 300 exercises encompassing all parts of the body. You can hold the straps with your hands and do resisted bicep curls, rows and similar leaning backwards; lean forwards and you can use the straps like a pec deck – you try it – it’s really challenging!
As the length of the straps is adjustable, you can bring them close to floor level and put your feet in the handles to do press ups. As your weight is balanced mainly on your hands, your core has to work much harder than it usually does. The harder the whole body works, the more calories you burn, the more muscles you tone at one time, and the shorter your workouts need to be. So using the TRX Suspension System means you’ll get great full-body results and have time to go to the circus as well!
