Steps
Step 1: From a standing position, hold onto the TRX handles with palms facing each other.
Step 2: Lean back, extending arms, engaging your back muscles and keeping heels on the floor (you are supporting yourself at a 45-degree angle from the standing position)
Step 3: Pull your ab inwards, engaging your core muscles, while tightening your buttock muscles (your body should form a straight line at a 45-degree angle, with your heels on the floor)
Step 4: Pull yourself upwards, aligning your pull trajectory towards the bottom of your ribcage.
Step 5: Focus on retracting and depressing your shoulder blades, as well as squeezing your elbows into your sides, in order to maximally engage your back muscles.
Step 6: Lower yourself back to the starting position, in a controlled fashion.
Step 7: Repeat.
How to progress the exercise
Two levels of progression for this exercise are the following:
1. Executing this movement with your body in a more horizontal position; This is achieved by walking forward and leaning back at the same time (lengthening the strap will help maximize the position).
2. Placing your heels on a bench/ stability ball while in the horizontal position.
Additional Information
Tip: Increasing the resistance using TRX is a matter of levers. By lowering your torso further towards the ground, while keeping your heels on the ground, you are increasing the angle from a vertical standing position, which adds more of a gravitational pull on your body. Therefore, you have to increase your force output with your back muscles in order to create enough torque to pull yourself up and work your muscles appropriately. Therefore, there is a slew of incremental progressions in difficulty with this exercise, so be mindful of this.
