Submitted by mkrause on Fri, 06/06/2008 - 09:48.
A client of mine asked me the other day, “Mandy, what’s the one piece of equipment that you can’t live without?” Without hesitation, I said, “Well, it’s not one, it’s two. My Bosu and my TRX.” The conversation then led into what I think is so great about the Bosu and the TRX and why I have to have them.
For any of you who have worked out with me, you know that I am a fan of making things as challenging as possible, while incorporating strength, balance and cardio into one exercise. I need to get the biggest bang for my client’s buck possible.
So let’s look at each piece of equipment one at a time, starting with the Bosu. For those of you who have never seen a Bosu or don’t know what it is by name, it is a blue exercise ball, cut in half on a hard black plastic platform. This is the perfect platform for working on your balance and coordination skills. While the ball side is up, the number of exercises that you can do on it is limitless. Take your normal squats, lunges, push ups, crunches, hyperextensions, I could go on an on here. The Bosu adds a higher level of coordination and self awareness to your workout that you just can’t get from working on solid ground. Now if you really want to take it to the next level, which my clients have deemed as “absolutely crazy!”, you can flip the Bosu over and put the platform side up. With the Bosu on its belly so to speak, you now have only a small portion of it that comes in contact with the ground and you have to balance on that and do your workout. Mind you, this is not for the novice or the unbalanced person, these exercises are considered advanced and I don’t recommend trying them unless you are under the supervision of a trained professional, and no I’m not kidding here folks. When I flip the Bosu over I do a variety of exercises like squats, good mornings, dead lifts, push ups, jump ups and anything else that my crazy brain can think of.
Now onto what my clients call my torture device, the TRX. The TRX consists of two straps with handles on it, but you would never think that something so unassuming could be so effective. The TRX works on your own body weight for resistance, and like the Bosu, you have to have a sense of balance to do a lot of the exercises. The straps are attached to a tree, or a suspension point high up and they hang down for you to do your exercises on. There is so much that you can do on the TRX that I am not even going to attempt to list the exercises here. Instead, click on the link on my page, the one in the right column and check out some of the videos that they have on their website. I don’t often endorse fitness products, but this…this is worthy of my endorsement and accolades.
So there you have it, if I had to get rid of all of my equipment and I could only keep two items, you know what they would be. If you have an exercise that you do on either one of these and want to share it, post a comment here…
For more information on the Bosu go to: http://www.bosu.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=bosu/story.html?src=SPBC
For more information on the TRX, click on the link to the right.
