TRX Suspended Rows

Image courtesy of barbull.co.uk

There are a lot of unjustified myths and magic surrounding the TRX.  Despite all of this nonsense, I think one movement that it actually creates a decent resistance profile for is what is commonly referred to as "TRX Suspended Rows".

http://www.youtube.com/embed/T1LmbIL6a9U

Impeccable control displayed above.  Classic Charlie.

Okay, back to the story.

Relative to other popular forms of pulling exercises, such as single arm dumbbell rows and various versions of pull-ups, using this tool for rowing may be more mechanically advantageous for appropriately challenging a pulling movement over a relatively larger range of motion (depending on what kind of challenge you are wanting to create within the exercise).

Because you are pulling yourself towards an upright position from a more horizontal position, the percentage of your body weight that you have to pull decreases as you move from the starting position towards to the top of the rep.  Additionally, as you perform this motion, the mechanical efficiency of the resistance at creating rotation around your joints--and subsequently challenging your muscles--increases, while at the same time the ability of your muscles to generate tension and overcome the resistance decreases (due to the shortening of the muscle fibers).

**Side note:  You also may run into a situation where your hands are closer together when your body is more horizontal and farther apart when your body is more vertical.  This would mean instead of pulling straight back, you are pulling back and out, which is going to be a less efficient way to pull yourself up.  Also, it is potentially different than the other examples given of the dumbbell row and pull-up, so for this post we are going to say that the distance between your hands does not change throughout the motion.

What this means is, as you pull yourself upwards throughout the range, the resistance force is becoming better at challenging you while you are becoming worse at overcoming it, similar to the dumbbell row and the pull-up.  However, the cool thing about the TRX version of a row is a that you will be having to pull less and less of your body weight as you pull yourself up, which makes for a more favorable scenario if you are looking to challenge a larger range of motion while performing what is traditionally labeled as a row.

There are obviously limitations to this tool as far as being able to load the motion appropriately while still getting the desired drop off in challenge throughout the range, but for all of you who are gung-ho about the TRX, this exercise can actually be fairly favorable from the perspective of trying to adequately challenge your tissue throughout a larger range of motion.

And if you are not gung-ho about the TRX or are indifferent towards which tool you use to challenge tissue with but still want this kind of drop off as you pull, check out the Nautilus Nitro™ Compound Row.  The presented challenge can be seen in the video below, as discussed by some guy with weird facial hair.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/k1Jbt7LgCcI

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