Most of my clients come to me looking for high intensity/fat loss training, as more people start to appreciate the results I deliver along with my clients’ hard work. Hardcore, mean J , tough, brutal, were adjectives that I could hear often about my style and results. Sometimes fun, but Woah! From a different perspective it concerned me that people would think that I would make them do burpees supersetting with pull ups at their first session, make them dizzy, nauseous and injured, but so what! As long as they could lose 10lbs in 2 weeks, that should be all good, right? Nooooooooope! I lifted my Stop sign right there a while ago, as I had to work with regressions and slow a lot of people down to address threatening weaknesses that could easily turn into injuries. There I was looking to incorporate more functional training.
Rewind a bit here. I found TRX Suspension Training on the internet while looking for portable tools as I was expanding my in-home training clientele in NC. The stability ball was too big to get in and out of the car, bands were a great tool, but not for everything I wanted to explore, dumbbells my favorite but heavy. My jaw dropped when I saw this crazy all-in-one tool, as I first called it. There was only 1 TRX available at the gym I used to work for in NC, but I quickly started to incorporate as much as I could understand, while I tried to educate myself. Life fast forwarded me to MD, where I started to use TRX more regularly almost 2 years ago. I was reluctant until I started to learn more regressions to use clients of all levels, specially because of my challenging training style. That’s when I loaded my clientele (even more my own workouts) with TRX options to “slow them down” and help them to take ownership of their bodies and training.
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| Yours truly anchored to a tree. Work those shoulders and back! |
As Suspension Training was a challenge for them to deal with the fear of “hanging themselves” off of straps, they started to better understand their bodies, recruit more muscles, feel inch by inch what muscle activation meant. For the tough cookies, I could applied the progressions, more challenging options, also taking advantage of fusion workouts, mixing TRX, machines and free weights in the same session.
The ones who had more challenges (balance, strength, stability, or mobility) started to show responses that, to be honest with you, I wasn’t even expecting that fast.
Flexibility gains were opening the doors to more difficult moves. Core stability was blowing my mind away, bringing up performance to the next level. “Dormant butts” were waking up, abs were on fire, planks were lifting off the ground. The fear was dissipating and pains were going away!
The case I’m most passionate about is the gains of strength of a client with a spinal tumor that visibly affected her right side. At first, we couldn’t maintain secure grip of the handles, but now she does pulling movements, keeping her grip and her shoulders stable. No injuries! Her doctors were impressed with the gains on upper body strength and development of muscle tone on that affected side. Soon, the opportunity came and after I very thorough and extensive training, I became a TRX R4 Trainer, and started to teach group classes, through my TRX Training Camp. The group setting was the living proof that the “all-in-one portable” tool could work for everyone and anyone at the same time. Same workout, different fitness levels and the system worked its magic smoothly. The feedback was amazing, huge gains in strength, postural correction, improvement for runners, muscle definition, you name it. Of course I wanted to learn more!
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| TRX Sports Med STC, Gaithersburg, MD 6/5/2011 |
I had the privilege to attend the TRX Sports Medicine Suspension Training Course this past weekend, coached by Chris Nentarz, and I my mind was once again blown away by the endless possibilities to bring back people coming out of injuries who need or simply want to gain (or re-gain) peak performance. No matter what peak performance means to you. For some, just the ability of standing up and rotating their shoulders can mean a life-change. There is no “oh, then TRX is not for you”. There is ALWAYS an option, there is ALWAYS a regression, and there will be always improvement through the different pathways your body will find to become functionally fit. Have you ever had a leg injury? Has your knee ever been cranky? How about twisting your ankle? Have you ever fallen?
Would you like some numbers? There is scientific evidence proving that leveraging your own bodyweight and manipulation your stability, you can benefit from key findings. Here stealing from the information provided by TRX Suspension Training about reduction of risk of injuries and about improving health and fitness: - Lower limb injuries by 39% .
- Acute knee injuries by 54% .
- Ankle sprain injuries by 50% .
- Recurrence of ankle sprain reduced two-fold.
- ACL injuries by 88%!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Safe and effective in reducing fall risk.
- Improving performance such as vertical jump height increase in 9%.
Yes, I totally dig it. Why? Client feedback. That simple. It just works.
Cute fact: my daughter loves it too. J
It’s your turn now… And to answer your question, YES, TRX is for you.
