Several years ago, as a gift, I got a TRX to help me round out my training. A personal trainer friend recommended it as an excellent piece of equipment to help support more traditional resistance training, and having used it several times in commercial gyms, I knew it was a strong addition to my workouts.

At first, I began using it at the end of all my weight training sessions, mostly for added resistance during abdominal/core training. I’d hang it up in the room in the gym meant for its TRX classes, then finish up my workout with TRX planks, body saws, and the occasional set of “Atomic TRX push-ups.” (Yes,  I was the weirdo bringing his own TRX to the gym.) Every now and then I’d mix in TRX inverted military presses, hand-walking away from the anchor point to execute an upside-down shoulder press. Safe!

The TRX still has a place in my home gym. I do have the door-conversion kit with it, where you can take off the hook attachment and instead put on the anchor that lets you close your bedroom or hotel room door and get your workout done. But since I have the space, I’ve ceiling-mounted mine to a joist in the garage, and that’s where it’s been since Day 1 of my project.

Sadly, I don’t use it as much as I’d like to. Even when I was using it every day, as I mentioned before, I am certain the range of exercises that can executed with the TRX extended far beyond the simple use I was getting out of it. These days, my TRX use consists of:

• Ab work: Planks, body saws, side planks
• Rows
• Shoulder resistance movements
• Lying hamstring curls (I still need to figure out how to simulate more resistance on these!)

And that’s about it. It’s a crime! I would love to hear others’ thoughts on ways to further integrate the TRX into my garage workouts – I fully believe a legitimately challenging full routine can be executed with this piece of equipment alone, which is one of the main reasons I find it so appealing for us home fitness fans.

In the meantime, I’ll use the trusty internet as my guide for good TRX movements.