TRX: A repost from my other blog.

Okay folks,

Today we are going to talk about a very simple yet effective piece of fitness equipment. It is called TRX which can be found here.

It is quite a well designed piece of kit, able to carry heavy loads (afterall, the straps it is made from are designed for use on airdrop pallets and holding tanks in big planes after all), and is more importantly VERSATILE!

You can use this thing anywhere. From your hallway door, to the nearest soccer/football goal post, to a tank somewhere in the middle of Iraq. Pretty much nearly every exercise in the gym, can be adapted to the TRX. Things requiring barbells, dumbells or free weights generally don't carry over exactly, but instead of doing a bench press, you can do a horizontal pull up. Squats, curls, stretches, lunges etc all cross over nicely.

Now, for those of us with non-normal structures, the system is an excellent vessel for adaptation. It is also starting to get a good reputation from trainers who work with rehab patients. If used in the gym when the doctor gives permission, you can generally find a more rapid increase in ROM from pre to post surgery. A few accounts I have read that knee's thoroughly benefit with an almost full recovery of ROM. Hips, well from personal experience, they do well, but I think requires a bit more work.

Backs on the other hand, benefit greatly! On sore days, it can be used to crucifix stretch, squat stretch, over the head stretch, front incline stretch, shoulder pull stretch and many other forms. The nice thing about it is, because it is not technically an assisted machine (ie assisted squat machines, press machines etc) it still relies on stability during strength training, and for backs, as Stuart McGill pointed out in his opus Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, Exercise Science and the Back: Removing the confusion page 43 "performance cannot be trained in a sitting posture". He does state the benefit of machines in that they "can regulate the magnitude of the resistance, the speed of joint motion and the motion of adjacent joints" with back stiffness or deformity, this in personal experience, is not necessarily a good thing. Machines are desgined for a straight line of motion. When you have upper kyphosis for example, you will only get half a press before your shoulders need to move around the kyphotic structure and then continue to press. This can lead to a scapula displacement, which in laymans terms means, shitloads of pain!

Scapula displacement, hyper-extension or tightening in back diseases, is usually a major cause of back pain. The spinal column itself can generally put up with a very small degree of malignment without the need of major pain medication, but when the Scapula, the AC Joint which joins the Acromion and the Clavicle together and the three tendons encapsulating the Rotator Cuff are damaged or displaced, physio and high end anti-inflammatories are required, as well as a period of rest and thinking about what stupid thing that you did caused it to be the whinging demon from hell it is being.

Now, where does the TRX fit into this you ask? Well, because it is a resistance and bodyweight training device, the chances of you overstacking and heavy things crusing your sternum to your thoracic vertebrae and making you look like a letter S or a tapeworm, are minimized. Yes, you can still injure yourself, and nastily, but under proper guidance, and COMMON SENSE, you can generally exercise in safety. Usually starting off with stretches, squats, lunges and runner starts, as well as curls, extensions and more stretches should ensure that you are on the road to good back health. Do no do more Atomic Crunches than you can handle, and also make sure you don't hyper extend your scapulae if you are doing suspended planks!

Hope you liked my first "real sounding" article. Tell me what you think.