And check this out – this woman is an ANIMAL!

Here are the quickie Plus points:

1. It works you in all planes of movement. Even free weights do not do what this does to you in terms of involving your entire body and activating your core in nearly every move.
2. It keeps me on my ‘bodyweight’ workouts that I need and require. Less stress on joints (especially coming off of a right knee arthroscopic surgery for a meniscus tear) and more focus on overall fitness instead of focus on any one fitness pursuit (strength, cardio, flexibility). It works on all levels at the same time. Call it ‘functional’ fitness, call it what you like – it’s applicable in the real world and keeps me going.
3. Instantly change your moves – ie. the angle of your move by adjusting your feet and viola – you can increase or decrease your intensity levels instantly.
4. Allows for creativity. You can take basic moves and create all sorts of extra stretches and extensions to totally revamp what’s happening and increases the usefulness and range of motion in every move. This system – which is truly as simple, and hardcore as you make it – allows for this on not only every movement, but on EVERY rep too. It’s incredibly freeing after years and years of strict form based movements to then take the same strict forms and allow for ways to increase the range and or plane the move works in… instantly on the fly.
5. It’s really the simplest form of workout, requiring only an anchor point that creates so many possibilities. You can get and find moves all over the Net – on the TRX Forums, the TRX blog, on YouTube and add them into your program as you see fit. It’s your body moving against gravity in multiple planes and constant motion. It’s perfectly suited to circuit training because adjustments are so fast and quick to do between moves.
6. You can do entire workouts alone to the highest level of intensity without need for a spotter.
7. There is no limit, seemingly, to the creative ways to incorporate this into most any routine.

Cons:

1. It costs $150 to get; you can do the moves with ropes or straps, but you lose all the flexibility to adjust on the fly and won’t have the handles and foot rests on a rope to work with. This thing is worth the money, it’s just a functional piece of engineering genius and the materials and quality are top shelf across the entire apparatus. It’s so simple stupid to work with, but yet durable and functional at the same time. Brilliantly done, and deceptively so to those that just look at it.
2. A novice with no workout experience to draw on might be a bit lost on how to properly do the moves. It comes with a great DVD and training book; but once you want to move past that you really need to understand proper athletic exercise mechanics to craft and customize your routines.
3. Your joints are taxed with overload – it’s based on moving and your joints – especially your shoulders and hips – are in most every single move. For every single upper body move, your shoulders are involved as at least a pivot point. Until you have the strength and stamina in your shoulders to do the advanced moves through an entire routine, it’s a bit overwhelming. I hit this thing thinking I was in shape, I got a quick lesson in humility.
4. It’s an equalizer. No matter how big, strong or fit you think you are… you are on even ground because of bodyweight – with everyone using it. For some folks, that can get inside your head. Not me, but it’s something to consider. I can rip off push-ups in the hundreds per set, but on this getting 25 hanging with my hands suspended, face-down under the anchor point on the ceiling is a most humbling experience.
5. You need an anchor point. It has a door attachment you can use as an anchor point, but that limits a lot of the ‘bigger’ moves (aka. doing a pendulum move with your feet suspended). You need enough space, not a LOT of space, but enough space to lean and move side to side.

Since Fall 2009, I have been doing a lot of slide board work; with the Goaler-One 10′ G-1 slideboard. Utilizing a interval type of approach and working hard against time, it’s been a killer new way to get cardio in that is DIRECTLY applicable on the field moving side to side and pivoting like I do as a defense man running backwards, and pivoting to frontwards and side-to-side like I do.

I’ve been following the P90X structure – hard for 3 weeks; cardio/core for 1 week.

It’s been nearly 3 years since I went at P90X and I need some new, different challenges to keep things interesting and fresh.

Enter:

My wife’s cousin has been doing this for a while and talked it up for about a year or so to me.

From first glance at the “Basic Training” workout that comes with the “Pro Pack” and if you’ve done P90X and/or Yoga… you’ll be right at home. Big movements that utilize your body weight and gravity to increase over all body type of moves and not specialty moves.

Tomorrow is Day 1 for me; let’s bring it!!