Compactness, versatility drive popularity of TRX - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Compactness, versatility drive popularity of TRX

It weighs less than a combat boot, can be stuffed inside a helmet and used in an area smaller than a Humvee parking space, yet it provides a complete workout of strength-training killers, cardio blasters and core-tapping terrors.

It will work every muscle in your body, build balance, improve flexibility and even help you ease back from injuries. In just a few years, it’s become the secret weapon of special ops ninjas, pro coaches, elite athletes and top sports docs.

Now the secret is getting out.

If you haven’t already felt the stinging, hurts-so-good bite of Total Resistance Exercise — dubbed TRX for short — chances are you will soon.

In the past year alone, the Pentagon has purchased nearly 30,000 TRX units, primarily for troops heading downrange. And that’s just bulk orders; it doesn’t include the thousands of units purchased by troops on their own dime.

“It’s a true grassroots movement,” says Alex Roodhouse, who first discovered TRX as a riverine unit commander in Iraq. “It was perfect for us. I loved it.”

So much so that he left the Navy in 2008 to work for TRX maker Fitness Anywhere and the Navy SEAL who invented the product.

“It’s taken about four years for the word to get around, but it’s really starting to catch on now,” he said.

What it is

TRX weighs in at less than 2 pounds, consisting of little more than a D-ring, some adjustable nylon webbing and two padded handles. Think go-anywhere mil-spec gymnastics rings with a punch. The punch comes from your own body weight as you fight against gravity and those swaying straps to make it through any one of hundreds of exercises.

“It’s multiplanar — you’re unsupported, not locked into any one particular plane of movement,” says Randy Hetrick, who fashioned the first TRX prototype out of parachute cord when he was a SEAL trying to figure out ways to stay fit while stashed away inside subs, ships and safe houses.

The beauty of the system is that “it allows for variation of resistance from none of your body weight to all of your body weight,” he says.

That variation comes from the angle of the straps as you dangle in its clutches. Call it the muscle-building magic of leverage. Whether it’s your hands or feet hanging from the end of those straps, when you move farther away from the anchor point, the workouts get increasingly difficult; move in and the reps get easier.

For troops, the main appeal seems to be the wide variety of exercises coupled with the go-anywhere flexibility.

“It’s a terrific solution for a challenging workout as it provides an almost unlimited amount of compound exercises in a kit that fits in an assault-sized pack,” says Maj. Tim Hardy, a staff officer with 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade, which issued 400 TRXs — one to every squad or section — during its recent deployment to Afghanistan.

“The TRX is highly adaptable, and the individual user is only limited by his or her creativity,” Hardy wrote in an after-action review of its use downrange, where everyone from the task force commander to grunts at remote forward operating bases gave it high praise.

“In terms of one single, easily deployable fitness system, the TRX is a much more practical and efficient system than a weight room or set of weight machines,” Hardy concluded, recommending one for every three-man rifle team.

How it works

With just two handles and some straps that you can hang from just about anything — from walls and trees to hotel doors and tank main guns — TRX is deceptive in its simplicity.

Don’t let it fool you. In 20 minutes, you’ll be begging for mercy, says Dr. Joe Martin, a former SEAL-turned-chiropractor and sports medicine expert who is now Fitness Anywhere’s top trainer and senior evangelist to the military.

Over the past four years, he has dished out blocks of TRX knowledge to more than 400 units across all branches of the military — from a few hours of basic introduction with Coast Guard crews to five-day coaching sessions with special operations units.

The key to a good TRX workout, he says, is choosing exercises that involve all three major areas of movement — front to back, side to side and rotational — while also working both the lower and upper body.

“The big thing I lecture is progression,” Martin says. Every TRX exercise can progress in difficulty in various ways, so keep these intensity factors in mind:

• Stability: Adjusting feet and hand positions, even going to one-arm or one-leg exercises, fires up your stabilizing muscles and puts your core to work in a big way.

• Vector: The farther your feet are from the anchor, whether standing or suspended, the harder the exercise.

• Combos: Bring two or more exercises together to spark more pain and gain.

If you’re married to the idea of shooting for reps, that’s fine, but Martin prefers to count seconds and just pound out as much as he can.

“Usually, life is about time, not repetition. Out on the battlefield, there’s no such thing as reps and sets,” he says.

Most sports, he says, also are about time — how long can you last before you run out of juice. “So, most of the exercises I do are time-based exercises. Do them for 30 to 60 seconds to the best of your ability.”

Who it’s good for

“I love the functionality of it,” says five-time combat veteran Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Chris Peacher, a fitness trainer at Balboa Naval Medical Center in San Diego who has been using TRX for four years.

“It has no limitations, and you can adapt it to just about anything,” he says.

Wounded troops and rehabbing athletes — even amputees — love it for that reason alone. It’s become the centerpiece of Peacher’s own personal training business, in which he’s worked with more than 150 disabled clients — about a third of them wounded veterans — over the past two years.

“We had a Marine corporal with a total hip fracture. She needed a complete replacement,” he says. “After seven months of rehab, she still only had very limited mobility. We got her on the TRX, and within four months, she is fully recovered. She’s out surfing and playing volleyball now without any limitations.”

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees credits TRX with his recovery after getting sidelined with a torn shoulder muscle a few years ago.

“I’m addicted,” Brees gushed to Sports Illustrated in 2007.

Related reading

• Sample TRX workout

Get your own TRX

You can buy the original TRX for $189.95 or the tactical TRX FORCE for $219.95 — not counting the $20 military discount online. Or you can win ours. To enter, click here and give us your best tips for getting a great workout anywhere.