There’s something no-nonsense about a piece of workout equipment that looks like it should be hanging in a medieval dungeon. It involves lots of stretching, a good deal of hanging as well. And your body will certainly feel the effects. Torture? Depends upon your perspective.

All that swam through my head as personal trainer Larisa Lotz walked me into one of the side fitness rooms at Seaboard Fitness in downtown Raleigh. Amid the other devices that might also have felt at home in a dungeon — kettle balls, medicine balls, stretching bands, assorted weights — were a pair of black and yellow strips of nylon webbing hanging from the ceiling’s supports. At the ends were stirrups; just above them were cinching devices like those used to tighten a kayak to a rooftop car rack. They appeared devious in their simplicity. Any pretense of innocence they might have held evaporated when Larisa told me, “They were developed by a Navy Seal.”

Seals, actually. Seems that when the Navy Seals are on a mission, they don’t always have access to a neighborhood gym. So Randy Hetrick and his fellow Seals improvised, coming up with a strap system made from parachute webbing they could deploy just about anywhere — in a warehouse, a ship, a submarine, a tree. The ingenious thing about this strap system is that it uses body weight and position to determine the intensity of the workout, a concept called “suspension training.” Wanna ramp it up? Simply put more weight on the straps — more weight translating to more resistance. When Hetrick left the Navy he devised a civilian application: the TRX® Suspension Trainer®. That bit of Star Wars technology, unleashed to the civilian public three years ago, was what was hanging from the ceiling.

Larisa likes the TRX because it dovetails with her niche as a personal trainer: functional fitness. “People, to me, are not moving well,” she tells me as we stand in front of the TRX straps. “Everything is tight. Functional fitness is all about movement.” Basically, she adds, about making sure every muscle is getting worked and that those muscles are working in synch.

It’s called functional fitness for a reason. According to WebMD.com, the focus is on “ … building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealized posture created by a gym machine.” It’s a philosophy that works well for everyone, Larisa says, from patients in physical therapy, to sedentary types just launching a fitness program to elite athletes trying to squeeze as much as they can out of their bodies.

“OK,”  Larisa instructs me as the time comes to stop asking questions and sample the product, “get on your hands and knees and I’ll get your feet into these straps.” I do as told as she slips my feet into the stirrups, which hang two feet off the floor. I assume the plank position, my arms straight, my body parallel to the floor. Immediately, without doing anything, I feel my every core muscle, from my iliopsoas to my latissimus dorsi, spring into action. She has me do five pushups, she has me bring my knees to my chest five times, she has me spread my legs as wide as I can, again, five times. Then she has me combine the three: pushup, knees to chest, spread legs. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
I can’t imagine there isn’t a muscle that hasn’t just been worked. Then we stand, Larisa cinches up the stirrups to about four-feet off the floor and I discover otherwise. We launch into a series of moves using the stirrups as handholds. Squats, golf swings, lunges … .

“There are 500 things you can do with these,” Larisa says. “Oh, more than that.” That’s because you can combine moves to keep one workout from being like another. And if you’re looking for a universal trend in fitness these days, that would be it: keep your muscles guessing. Don’t fall into a routine and let your muscles get complacent. Have them doing something new and different each workout.

After 40 minutes of this sampler workout, my muscles have indeed done things new and different. When I get home, though, I’m certain they’ll do something familiar.

Rest.

Quick notes about the TRX:

• It’s more expensive than you might think. The cheapest package I could find on the fitnessanywhere.com Web site was $189.95 (including the TRX Trainer, DVD, travel pouch and workout book).
• You can do it anywhere, though it would appear to work best hung from the rafters of a basement, a garage or an elevated deck, or from a tree. An accessory allows you to hang the TRX from a door jam, though that limits the exercises you can do.
• Technique is key. Pay close attention to the training DVD, or work with a personal trainer familiar with the device. Also, some gyms now incorporate the TRX into classes.
• Larisa suggests using the TRX twice a week. For athletes, weekend to elite, she says it’s a great supplemental workout to your regular routine (biking, running, etc.)

Contact Larisa Lotz at clotz@bellsouth.net.