Workout Wednesday: TRX

My sister's boyfriend got her a TRX for her birthday last year.  I would use it when I was at my dad's house and loved it.  It was a great way to get in a full body workout, it was easy to modify to make the exercises easier or more difficult, and it was quick and simple to use. 

When my birthday came around, my husband bought me one.  It was perfect timing.  I was training for a half marathon at the time, and my three weekday morning workouts were consumed with running.  I never wanted to actually go to the gym on Tuesday, one of my cross training days, so I would sling the TRX over the door and do one of the 15-25 minute workouts that was available on their website.  The perky Canadian voice-over actor giving the instructions, the crazy fit guy or girl demonstrating the moves, and the really nice looking all-white apartment where the workouts were filmed all made me feel bad when I cursed at the videos when my legs or arms started to ache in protest.  They were really pretty good workouts, and I would always end up a sweaty puddle of mush on my yoga mat by the end. 

But after a while, I started to get bored with the videos.  Plus, my marathon training ended, so I was using my morning workouts to do a lot more strength training at the gym.  Once that happened, the TRX got relegated to a weekend-at-home workout, or a bust-out-a-few-random-moves workout.

But I still love the thing.  So, when I saw Julie from Peanut Butter Fingers post the other day about teaching a TRX class, I got a bit of inspiration. I was working from home on Friday, it was snowy and cold and crappy out, and I didn't feel like even venturing downstairs to the gym for my workout.  Or putting shoes on.  So TRX sounded perfect.  (Note: I do recommend wearing shoes when TRX-ing.  It makes it easier to keep your feel in the cradles and it kind of hurts a bit when you're shoe-less.)

I did a quick Google search and came up with a great circuit that's fairly quick.  It took me a little over 30 minutes to complete the whole workout (I didn't take the full 30 second break between each exercise) and my arms and legs were still sore a few days afterward (the hamstring curls kill me). 

Check it out for yourself: 

And, here are links to each exercise in case you're not familiar: 
- Jackknife push-up
- Hamstring curl
- Side plank
- Single arm power pull
- Single leg squat
- Inverted row
- Triceps push
- Squat and flye
- Pike
- Chest press to standing roll out
- Deltoid flye

Enjoy!