TRX suspension training: a 2 pound contraption made of low tech straps. It can replace an entire gym. The resistance is provided by the body weight of the trainee, and can be easily adjusted by simply changing the angle the person pulls at.

(hover your mouse over pictures to read explanations)

TRX almost always uses the important but rarely trained core muscles, the lower back, stomach and oblique muscles. Unlike weight machines, TRX exercises (like push-ups with hand in the straps) also train the small muscles that stabilize joints.

TRX became first popular in the US armed forces. It is hard to carry a fully equipped gym to war in Iraq. A few straps are not only easier to carry around but also a lot cheaper.

Human-Stupidity Analysis

Exercise straps? Is Human-Stupidity changing this blog’s topic? No.

Human-Stupidity is about fixed ideas, dogmas, mental restrictions, and about overcoming such limitations.

We are intrigued that TRX was not invented 2000 years ago. There is no high technology in TRX. But we have been restricted by fixed ideas like

1. weights are needed. Even in gym machines that use ropes and pulleys
2. elastic tapes are needed. This requires us to have various straps of differing strength, that also can snap and injure the trainee.

To be fair, Wikipedia quotes a few predecessors of TRX Suspension Training, but seemingly they were never successful enough to become famous.

You have to watch a few pictures, a few movies, and then try yourself to understand the genius simplicity of TRX.

TRX Pro Pack + Door Anchor  Fitness Anywhere  $199.95

You can even carry TRX on a business trip and mount it on hour hotel room door. You can carry it to the park and strap it to a tree. No more excuses for not exercising.

TRX & FUNCTIONAL TRAINING: 50 exercises by Coach Miletto | YouTube

TRX Exercise Columbus Ohio|YouTube

Abdominal exercises with TRX Suspension Trainer: YouTube Video

Suspension training requires placing your feet in stirrups suspended from straps attached to a thick branch or metal bar and exercise hanging upside down. Makers of the two most popular devices (TRX and Inkaflexx) claim there are more than 300 strengthening and toning moves – from knee-tucks to push-ups – that can be performed in this dangling position and it is said to work every part of the body.

Practicalities

For those not quite ready to be hoisted to the ceiling in stirrups, there is the option with some suspension training equipment of leaning back while gripping the straps to perform moves. Changing the angle of your body will make an exercise seem easier or harder.

Is it worth the rush of blood to the head?

Advocates claim the beauty of suspension training is that you can’t help engaging the core stability muscles (those closest to the spine) when you do it which is good news for posture and the back. But critics warn that the instability of suspension straps can predispose people with inadequate core strength to injury. Fabio Comana, a research scientist for the American Council on Exercise says it may be helpful to well-conditioned athletes and gym-goers, but is potentially dangerous for the less fit. "A segment of the population doesn’t have the joint integrity and the ability to stabilise their entire body when doing this," he says. [...]

Expert view

Bristol Rugby club’s strength and conditioning coach, Dave Bell, describes the TRX system as "the most effective and functional piece of equipment I’ve seen for years".  Suspension training | The Guardian

2002, when a Navy Seal turned entrepreneur sent Mr. Baldwin a test model of the TRX system, a suspension gadget made of a pair of straps with handles joined by a metal clasp ring. To set it up, he only had to wrap the straps around a freestanding pole or over a thick branch. Strength training became as simple as placing his feet in stirrups to suspend them off the ground, then performing dozens of exercises like knee tucks or pushups.

After 45 minutes of so-called suspension training, Mr. Baldwin exhausted his body from shoulders to calves using just the 170 pounds of his weight. Better yet, the two-pound straps rolled up to the size of a military bag lunch.

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In the last year suspension training has entered the mainstream after two kinds of straps landed on the market: TRX and Inkaflexx. They have attracted the attention of personal trainers and group fitness directors as strengthening tools that also improve balance and flexibility. Suspension workouts consist of either hanging the legs or leaning back while gripping the straps and then performing a variety of moves.

The beauty of suspension training, its advocates say, is that you can’t help engaging your core to steady yourself. On the other hand, critics warn that the instability of suspension straps can result in injury, especially if you have a history of joint or back injuries, or inadequate core strength.    Suspension Training: How Risky Is It? | New York Times

We think the critics are talking about the hard-core exercises being dangerous for couch potatoes. The lighter exercises shown above don’t look dangerous.  Out-of-shape people can not indiscriminately use all exercises meant for elite Navy Seals.

But obesity appears to be the primary reason South Carolina mom Jerri Gray lost custody of her 14-year-old, 555-lb. son in May. She was arrested after missing a court date to examine whether she should retain custody after doctors had expressed concern about her son’s weight to social services. The boy is currently living with his aunt, and his mother is facing criminal child-neglect charges. [...]“It’s happening more than the public is aware of, but because these cases are usually kept quiet [as a result of child-privacy laws], we have no record,” says Dr. Matt Capehorn, who sits on the board of the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1930772,00.html

Parents have an obligation to care for their little children. Parents face legal sanctions or loss of paternal rights if they do not provide basic care for their children, for example if children are

• undernourished
• unkept and dirty
• truant missing school education.

It actually makes a lot of sense, to add this list

• morbid obesity, obviously.
  • Unless if  proven it is not the parent’s fault andit persists after
    • medical
    • nutritional
    • and physical education interventions.

The epidemic of obesity that kills more people then all wars together, needs more serious attention. Actually, any lack of movement, any overweight should be considered abuse. The child has no recourse against it, and when it is a fat overweight diabetic adult it is too late.
Of course, this suggestion to require responsible parenting contradicts all  the

Faulty government policy regarding obesity & other health hazards (alcohol, …)

• Promote interest of big beef farmers.
• Let Coca Cola and McDonalds reign and advertise to children without health warnings.
• it is totally insane that the government does not have EMERGENCY plans against all these health epidemics.`Rather, government should be engaged in
  • promotion of healthy nutrition
    • natural,
    • low salt,
    • high in vitamins, l
    • low in sugar,
    • little additives
    • people should NEVER imbibe enough alcohol to get drunk or even tipsy. Alcohol should be taken like in mediterranean countries (Italy, France) who have a tradition of taking one glass of wine with meals.  Society should shun people who drink excessively and get drunk.
  • promotion of healthy exercise

  there should be government emergency programs to promote exercise for children and adults.

While the article does not give clear good answers, nevertheless it gives some funny and interesting suggestions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8019357.stm

By David Spiegelhalter
Professor of risk understanding, University of Cambridge

[...]

The threat from bacon sandwiches gave the opportunity for The Sun to produce the classic headline “Careless pork costs lives”, while the Daily Telegraph was true to form and frothed on about the nanny-state denying us our bacon birthright.

But all these health warnings tend to have little influence on behaviour, just as scientific derision for homeopathy appears to have no effect on many people’s enthusiasm.

So who is being unreasonable – the epidemiologists who give us health advice, or the public that duly ignores it?

Bacon sarnies

The curious fact is that both might be right.

[...]

‘Nudging’

These issues are tricky, and reflect a basic tension between individuals and society’s points of view.

If everyone improved their lifestyle just a bit, then the benefits to the overall health of the nation would be large but each individual would not notice the difference.

An inspired epidemiologist, Geoffrey Rose, called this the Prevention Paradox and we see it being played out again and again.

That is why it is understandable that attempts to create these shifts in behaviour by exhorting people to change tend to fail – and make them anxious and guilty.

There is a lot more to say:

• evolutionary explanations why we love sugar and fat (when our mind was formed, sugar and fat were scarce and hard to find,not available in a supermarket without limits. One had to hunt lean wild animals and collect fruits or risk one’s life to get honey away from the bees)

and psychological issues like:

• why should we believe in cold impersonal statistics? how do we know they are true? Did evolution prepare us to respect scientific research we cannot personally verify?
• do we really care about getting cancer in 35 years? We follow our instincts now and eat plenty to prepare for the day we don’t succeed to hunt down and eat another pig.
• now if we had a religion that tells us not to eat pork, that would be a different issue.  Then we would respect, and no science is needed for that. Just faith!
• of course, in evolutionary time, 100 000 years ago we probably would not live enough to get bowel cancer
• and if we did get bowel cancer, we would not slowly die in a hospital with all kind of artificial life support.  There would be no problem about “right to die” issues. Starvation, infection, or wild animals would help us to end our suffering quickly.