TRX – Fitness institute, Troy, OH

After my last post I, admittedly, haven’t been back to crossfit. I am doing a lot more things, physically and decided to spend more time on those.

One of them is TRX with the Fitness Institute, in Troy Ohio. “What the hell is TRX?” I hear you ask- Well, let me tell you!

According to the story I heard from Ron (owner of Fitness Institute), a bunch of Navy Seals were on a mission. It was only supposed to last a day or two so they holed up in a bunker of some sort. Well, the mission got delayed and they ended up staying in that bunker for a lot longer than anticipated. Months, I think. During this time they had to keep their shape, but had no gear to train with. So they got creative with belts and para-chord and looped some stuff over hangers and started doing exercises. After the mission, one of them embraced his inner entrepreneur and TRX was born.

“What does that really mean, LN?” I hear you ask: It’s a couple of straps, hanging from a bar and you use your body weight to do standard exercises (like pushups, rows, situps, etc.) The straps force you to balance in strange/new ways that you don’t really expect- AND (best part) it’s totally scalable to your skill level.

So I took a class. It was only 30 minutes- to which I was thinking “huh. I wonder if I’m going to even feel it.”

After the class, I felt like I was just introduced to Terry Crews and we did Euro-training.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AuIURhCoAA&w=560&h=315]

The workout wasn’t high-intensity like crossfit pushes to be. It wasn’t “OMG, I’m going to die”. Chris went “easy” on us, and was patient, energetic, motivating and encouraging to be around. Did I say it was easy? No- I’m saying that Chris took it easy. The workout wasn’t easy at all. Doing pushups and renegade rows while balancing is effin’ hard. I woke up this morning feeling sore in strange muscles that I didn’t expect to be sore- mostly in my core. (YAY!)

I dragged my dad and brother to the class and we went to breakfast afterwards. We all agreed that, “for just straps hanging from a pole/door frame” it was a pretty serious workout. True, you could also do a lot with a deck of cards, but this gave you a lot more freedom and scaleable difficulty. So much, in fact, that my dad wanted me to buy a pair for the office so we could keep working out together.

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As for the Fitness Institute, it’s owned by Patty Rose and managed by Ron Darrow. It is a renovated church but they kept the stain-glass which, along with the high-ceilings, adds a lot of character. (It also makes you think twice before you start cussing at the trainer.) Upstairs has all the machines and free-weights. In the “choir hang” are the cardio machines. Downstairs is where they hold the classes. My family also went to a bootcamp workout (held on saturdays) which introduced bicep curls. (Crossfit doesn’t “do” bicep curls, so guess which part of my body was wrecked the day after?).

All in all, if you’re in the Troy area, looking for a gym to work out at, take a class, try something new, be around a bunch of really high-energy folk who also just want to see you succeed in life- check out the Fitness Institute! TRX is every Tuesday and Friday mornings at 6am (as of June 6th, 2014) and you’ll be seeing me there until I leave town again. 🙂