3 Reasons You’ve Got To Try a Suspension Trainer

by David Berman, MS, PT, COMT, CSCS

Have you ever watched a gymnast train on those ropes with ring on the ends? What if you could take that device, replace the rings with handles, and use it to work every muscle group in your body? And what if you could do that at home, in the gym, or practically anywhere?

Enter the suspension trainer.

The Serius Strap Suspension Trainer in action

A suspension training device is essentially a very strong strap with handles on the ends that can be secured to something overhead (like over a door or to a beam). And you can do literally hundreds of different (and some very cool) exercises with it.

The ultimate challenge in suspension exercises - 
100% suspended pushups (insanely hard!) 
 
Whether you’ve seen one before or not, here are some good reasons you should give training with a suspension device a try.

1. Kick in Your Core

Your “core” can be thought of as the muscles of your body that stabilize it. Another phrase for “core muscles” is “postural muscles”. They keep parts of you stable so that other parts can move.

Here’s one way to think about core muscles:

Let’s say you have to climb up a ladder to do some work. You would most certainly want someone to secure the bottom of the ladder. That person at the base of the ladder holding it in place is like your core muscles. Let’s call him/her the Stabilizer. The higher you climb, the more the Stabilizer works to make sure the ladder is supported.

Suspension Trainers can be used to very effectively make your core muscles turn on and work. By making things a bit “wobbly” your core muscles have to work to de-wobble (yes, I just made that word up). In other words, they stabilize you when the environment (i.e. device) is wobbly.

It’s like the difference between sitting on a standard chair (where the chair provides all of the stability) and sitting on a fitness ball (where your body has to work a bit to keep you from falling off).

The Marv Handles on the Serius Strap are like a Swiss Ball
or a BOSU Trainer for your upper core muscles.

Suspension Trainers also make your core muscles work at just the right level of challenge. Too much challenge and you risk getting injured. Too little challenge and you won’t make progress. Suspension Trainers let you adjust the challenge to suit your needs. This means that you can make your core muscles better at doing their job.
 

2. Workout Anywhere

Have you ever experienced one of the following situations?
-You are traveling for work or pleasure and the place you are going doesn’t have a gym
-Time is short and you’re just not able to make it to the gym
-Weather is bad, and you’re just not going to make it to the gym
-You simply don’t like working out at a gym, but can’t afford a full gym at home
-You can afford a full home gym, but don’t have the space for it

Devices like the Serius Strap Bodyweight Exercise Package might be the answer to your problems. Here's why:
-They pack small
-They are affordable (price for the Serius Strap Package is around US$130.00)
-You can exercise your whole body
-You can lose fat and increase muscle mass
-Anyone can use them 
-They let you workout anywhere

3. Constant Progress

Resistance training is all about progression. In order to make progress, you simply have to do a little bit more tomorrow than you did today.

For example, if you are doing push-ups and you can do 11 in a row, then the goal might be to get to 12 or 13 in a row. It’s simply a matter of working to do more of what you can already do.

But what if you can’t even do 1 push-up?

Question: How do you get from zero push-ups to doing 1? 
Answer: Decrease the challenge.

So, the way to get there is to reduce the resistance of the exercise so that you can do at least one. But how do you do that?
 
Some people advocate starting with doing push-ups on your knees and progressing to a standard push-up. I believe there are three major problems with this “solution”:

Problem #1: It’s uncomfortable – rocking on your knees just plain sucks.
Problem #2: The jump in resistance moving from knees to toes is a big one.
Problem #3: The exercise is really not the same.

In the traditional push-up the resistance is equal to about 75% of your body weight. For modified push-ups the resistance is closer to 55% of your body weight.

That means by going from a modified push-up to a regular one there’s a 20% increase in resistance!

It would ideal to make a small graded increase in resistance of 5% or so at a time – not big jumps like 20%. A good-sized increase would be to go from 85 pounds to 90 pounds (or from 39 kilograms to 41 kilograms). Suspension Trainers like the Serius Strap allow you to do just that.
 

By simply adjusting your body position with more or less lean, you can quickly and easily make the exercise more or less challenging by small increments. You can use this principle for any muscle or muscle group (or movement) that you choose.

Bonus Reason
Suspension Trainers are fun! Every time I bring my Serius Straps into the gym, people say that it reminds them of playing on a playground or in gym class. It taps into the spirit of climbing ropes and swinging on a jungle gym.

And if you ask me, when exercise is fun and effective – that’s a powerful formula for success.