TRX, or more commonly known as those black and yellow straps seen hanging around the gym, is a full-body strength workout that uses a person's own body weight instead of relying on machines or dumbbells. It stands for Total Body Resistance Exercise and was originally designed by a Navy Seal who needed to stay in shape within limited space using something he could easily take on his travels.
The TRX is commonly used by all four branches of the military, major athletes and Jennifer Lopez, and classes will be offered this spring semester at the Rec.
Kelsey Mason, senior in nutrition, will teach TRX at the Rec on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 a.m. this semester.
Mason trained to be a group fitness instructor at the Rec the summer before her junior year, and she has also received a group fitness certification by taking a test given by the American Council and Exercise association.
“It’s a body weight suspension group fitness format. It’s when you can connect these straps to an anchor point and the straps will hang down and they’re adjustable, and you basically perform various exercises either holding the straps or putting your feet in the straps,” Mason said.
“You use body weight while performing the exercises. So we do squats, plank holds, pull-ups, just working different parts of the body.”
Anyone can attend the class from beginner level to advanced, Mason said.
“This past semester I’d have two girls who’d come back for every class, so two participants, so I would try and challenge them by taking basic movements and adding a twist to them,” Mason said. “With newer participants coming into the class I would keep it at that basic level and kind of show them new movements but encourage them to stay at what they’re comfortable with.
Mason said she formats her class to where she’ll have a ten-minute warm-up in the beginning, four rounds and then a cool-down.
“Each round is divided up into four different upper and lower body exercises. For the first round I usually start off with the lower body such as squats, and then I’ll go into a different repetition of upper body movements such as chest presses. Then I’ll go into another lower body movement of squats just to enhancing what we started off with,” Mason said.
“For the fourth movement I’ll go back to the chest presses but I’ll add a different progression to it to make it a little more challenging. I’ll change the body position, changing the center of gravity, so it challenges the participant more.”
Mason was first introduced to group fitness training by one of her social sorority sisters who instructed scuba diving. “I would take her classes and I told her I was really interested in group fitness because I’m a nutrition major and I love the aspect of providing physical fitness with the nutrition aspect,” Mason said.
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