We’ve all seen TRX systems in our gyms. Yellow and black webbing that people use for all kinds of bodyweight workouts – from pushups, pullups, crunches and more.
So, when I recently extended my backyard wall to include a pullup bar, I wondered what else I could put out there – and while I briefly considered gymanstic rings, I decided to go with something like a TRX system. I knew you could make one, easily enough – but all the instructions I found to do that involved tow straps from a car and knots that I tied by hand – and assuming for a second that any knot I tie is going to hold – they also looked messy.
So, to google – and I turned up the Woss Enterprise systems.
Woss make a clone of the TRX systems. The military version I bought ran me $25 from Amazon, so I thought I’d be getting a product that wasn’t particularly great – but I figured anything I didn’t make myself had a better chance of survival.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised!
Firstly – to get the price down to $25, they don’t ship this in a fancy box or packaging. It comes bundled up with elastic bands in a clear plastic baggie. There are instructions and a printed sheet of example workouts, but no DVD or wall planners. They went barebones on the things that simply don’t matter, and I’m very glad they did! I wish more companies would sell the products for less, and cut out the junk we end up throwing away.
In the package, we basically got two handles – foam covered PVC pipe, with webbing (looks like seatbelt webbing) for your foot holds, and some heavy duty paracord to secure it to the strapping. There are no seams visible, so those must be tucked into the PVC piping.
The strapping has two thumb release sliders, and two regular sliders and a metal piece of hardware in the middle to attach it to things. You loop the paracord through the thumb releases to attach them together.
To attach the whole thing to your “whatever”, you have some webbing with a small pipe sewn into it which can be put over a door frame for indoor use – or you can loop that over something like a pullup bar, and use the included caribiner to attach it to the sliding metal hardware in the middle of your main strapping.
It’s not as confusing as it sounds – we put ours together in minutes with no need for the instructions.
The build quality is great. The strapping isn’t as thick as a TRX strap, but it’s as big as the strapping I’d use to tow a car, so it’s definitely going to do the job. The secondary, regular sliders aren’t particularly tight, but there only job seems to be to hold up the slack once you’ve set your height.
Movements on the system are as easy as they are on a TRX system (or not easy – if you get my drift), and it behaves exactly as a TRX system does – but, for $25.
