The 35 Best TRX Exercises Guide For Suspension Training

Do you want to maximise your muscle and functional strength gains with TRX suspension training?

In this post, I’ll share with you 35 TRX Muscle-Building Exercises with video guide to target every muscle group on your body.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned fitness enthusiast, we’ll look at how to perform each of these TRX exercises with ‘Muscle-Centric’ TRX suspension trainer technique. To help you transform your body quickly and effectively.

TRX Chest Exercises

Don’t have time to read the post in full? Then watch the video guide below of the 35 best TRX exercises to build lean muscle and transform your body…

There are two Pectoralis muscles (pecs) located on your chest. The major and minor. The major pectoralis can be divided into two heads: The upper head and lower head.

Hence why people often target upper and lower chest with exercises. The pecotoralis minor is found underneath the major.

The pecs act to: bring the upper arm across the body; internally rotate the shoulder joint and aid in shoulder flexion (raising your upper arm).

To help contract the chest muscles focus on squeezing your front shoulders together with the thought of nipping a pen between your pectorals (chest muscles). This is useful, especially with the TRX Chest Press.

Chest: Press

The foundational chest press exercise for TRX training. It’s easy to just ‘press forward’ and think you’re doing the exercise effectively. However, the majority of people struggle to feel any chest activation from it.

I also used to struggle to ‘feel it’ with a TRX Chest Press. These two technique points helped change that.

Technique Points

1. At the top, focus on bringing your elbows together, not hands. Try and make your elbows touch. Keep the arms straight and hands outside elbows. This will help with the squeeze of the chest muscle at the top and maintain tension.
2. At the bottom, contract the shoulder blades back to stretch the chest. No harm in staying here for a second to feel that stretch across the chest. More stretch at the bottom to powerful short contraction (squeeze) at the top, means… bigger range of motion and more muscle fibres recruited to improve.

Chest: Dips

This TRX Chest press variation can be more effective than the normal TRX chest press for 3 reasons:⁣

1. Stretching. At the bottom of the movement, it’s possible to get the shoulders and elbows right back behind the body to open up and stretch the chest muscles
2. More emphasis on the chest muscles. Pushing down and away to contract backup places less on the front deltoids ⁣
3. Squeezing of the chest muscles⁣. Towards the top contraction phase – focusing on pushing the elbows together across the body.

Technique Points

1. Push down and away when squeezing the pectorals to push back up⁣
2. Don’t straighten your arms at the top keep a slight bend
3. Place straps underneath the arm
4. Hold straps in a hammer grip

Chest: Flys

The best TRX exercise to develop chest muscle width. Again, I’ve seen people struggle to get chest activation with this chest exercise too. Focusing on your elbow position rather than your hands leads to effective form.

Technique Points

1. Straighten your arms.⁣ Refer to vid 10 sec in for a demo explanation: At the top of the exercise straighten your arms and focus on squeezing your pectorals (chest muscles), like nipping a pen between them.
2. Pull the shoulder blades back to stretch the chest.⁣ Bend at the elbow as you go back down on the negative phase and retract your shoulder blades back in a controlled manner to create as much stretch as possible (that you can comfortably/safely hold at the bottom)⁣
3. Don’t create the stretch at the bottom by straightening your arms and pushing your hands behind your body. It could cause injury. Try it in a standing position first to feel the difference.⁣

TRX Back Exercises

Back (Lats; latissimus dorsi)
The lats are two very large muscles that each run from just underneath your armpit all the way down to the bottom of your back. The lats primarily act to extend the shoulder by bringing your upper arm downward and for moving your elbows towards your mid back.

To contract the lats focus on pulling your shoulders down and back by feeling the squeeze at the sides of your back.

Back (Traps; trapezius)
The traps are also two very large muscles that each run from the base of your skull down to the middle of your inner back. The traps act to elevate the scapulae (otherwise known as shrugging your shoulders), to pull the shoulder blades back and to pull your arms backward when your elbows are raised.

To contract the traps, which you should be doing throughout 90% of exercises to protect your shoulder girdle and for good posture: Imagine there is a coke bottle between your shoulder blades and you are trying to hold it there by squeezing your shoulder blades together.

Back: Low Row

If you want to build your back muscles and strengthen your body foundation. Then you need to do these TRX Low Rows. You’re targeting and strengthening your lat muscles. The big ones at your sides.

Think of them as your body pillars. You can be assured that when you build these back muscles. Your upper body movement patterns and mobility will enhance.

Technique Points

1. Drive the elbows down and back, tight alongside the body. The hands are just hooks. The elbows lead.
2. Stretch right out at the bottom for a bigger range of motion. But, make sure to stretch and not simply ‘hang’ on the shoulder joint. Tension is lost from the back muscles when hanging.
3. Super hard SQUEEEEZE pause at the top. Really drive those elbows back and down and feel the lat muscles contracting hard. Close your eyes and visualise the muscles powerfully pulling the arms back.

As always, slow and controlled tempo. Technique mastery precedes hard work.

Back: Reverse Grip Row

The hands are just hooks with these TRX reserve grip rows for the back. In order to build muscle, the elbows lead, driving back and down alongside the body.

Technique Points

1. As always, and most importantly, hold that top powerful squeeze for a couple of seconds. Don’t hang at the bottom. Otherwise, tension is lost on the back muscles, specifically the lats.
2. For an advanced range of motion, make sure to stretch at the bottom, not hang.

Back: High Row

Fantastic to fix rounded shoulders and develop a solid shoulder girdle. These TRX High Rows target the upper part of your back and your rear shoulder muscles.

Technique Points

1. The elbows lead, drive them up and out ⁣⁣
2. Begin the movement by contracting your shoulder blades first⁣⁣
3. Squeeze your upper back as hard as possible at the top
4. Try not to pull with the hands, focus on using them as hooks

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TRX Bicep Exercises

They are a two headed muscle, hence bi, comprised of the long head and the short head. They work to flex the elbow from a straight to bent position and supinate the wrist (twist the pinky upwards).

The long head lies on the outside of your arm and the short head on the inside. The brachialis muscle, which runs underneath the biceps is also a strong elbow flexor.

To aid with bicep contraction during specific exercises, keep your wrist slightly bent back to stop your forearms muscles from engaging to much and taking effort away from your biceps. Supinate the wrist.

Biceps: Reverse Curls

The TRX reverse curl targets and builds the brachialis muscle that lies under your bicep and tricep. Building this muscle pushes the tricep and bicep muscles away from each other. Making your arm appear thicker and more defined.

Technique Points

1. At the top of the curl squeeze the bicep super hard and rotate your thumb upwards to hit your bicep peak.
2. On the downward phase at the very bottom contract the tricep hard. Contracting the tricep means the bicep will be fully lengthened.

Biceps: Curls

There’s a slight difference in technique focus from a beginner to an advanced level for TRX Suspension Trainer Bicep Curls. When starting out. I don’t believe in overloading the brain with too much to focus on at once while exercising.

So you don’t need to straighten your arms out fully at the bottom. Just focus on curling up and down and keeping tension on the biceps at a beginner level.

Technique Points

1. Contract the tricep at the bottom to stretch the bicep. Opposing muscle, when one contracts the other must lengthen. Bigger range of motion, more muscle incorporated and broken down, better gains.
2. Rotate the wrist at the top so the pinky goes up and the thumb goes down. This will greatly help with the top contraction squeeze. It will also target the bicep peak, for that popping bicep flex pose.

Biceps: Hammer Curls

It’s always best to target your biceps with at least two exercises that use a different position of the wrist. This ensures full biceps development. Here we have the hammer grip to target the long head of the biceps.

Technique Points

1. At the top of the hammer curls, rotate your pinky up for that extra squeeze and pop.
2. For an advanced-level addition. Contract the triceps at the bottom to lengthen the biceps. Adding an extra inch of bicep muscle to engage on the positive phase (curling back up).

Biceps: Drag Curls

If you struggle to feel a contraction in your biceps with normal TRX curls – try this version of a TRX drag curl⁣.

It places more emphasis on the ‘peak’ of the bicep, the top of the strength curve, to build round and popping biceps.

Technique Points

1. Pull your elbow behind your body⁣
2. Don’t focus on curling, focus on dragging your elbows back behind your body by squeezing your bicep muscles⁣
3. Squeeze your biceps as hard as possible at the top contracted phase and hold that squeeze for 2-3 secs⁣

TRX Tricep Exercises

The triceps lie on the back of your upper arm and are comprised of three heads, hence tri. A long head, a medial and a lateral. The triceps act to balance the biceps by extending your elbow from a flexed position to a straightened position.

To aid with muscle contraction of the triceps grip the TRX handle as hard as possible in your hands and squeeze your whole arm throughout the exercise.

Triceps: Extension (Skull Crusher)

TRX Skullcrushers⁣⁣. The main exercise to target your biggest tricep muscle, the long head. The key focus is to stretch the tricep right back behind your head, really get that elbow right behind and lengthen the long head of the tricep.

Technique Points

1. Don’t pause at the top and straighten your arm out to rest, this takes the tension off the tricep. Maintain a squeeze and come down just before.
2. Focus on stretching behind your head at the bottom for the biggest range of motion possible.

Triceps: Extension (Hammer Grip)

This video will show you how to do both tricep extensions (hammer and skullcrusher) including a third advanced version. the different angle of the wrist targets a different head of the triceps.

Like the biceps, it’s good to target the tricep muscles from different angles to get full development.

Hammer Grip: 02:10

Advanced Tricep Extension: 02:41

The same principles as above apply. Make sure to stretch right back behind your head. You don’t need a big angle stance. Focus on slow and controlled from with the suspension trainer.

Triceps: Close Press

Want to build the tricep muscle that gives your arms shape? Then start doing some TRX Close Presses. I like to think of TRX Skullcrushers for overall arm size. And these TRX Close Presses for aesthetic shape.

Technique Points

1. Push forward and down to keep the tension on the triceps and away from the chest
2. Squeeze the biceps at the bottom to lengthen the triceps. Bigger range of motion!
3. Top Squeeze is awesome here. Keep pushing downwards NOT forwards to increase the contraction squeeze. And feel those triceps pop!

Triceps: Dips

TRX Tricep dips at 00:31. very similar to what you would expect for dips. The difference is we use the handles. Push them back into the door as you rise up and down.

Technique Points

1. Keep elbows tucked in by your side
2. Keep your posture straight with your chin up
3. Squeeze the triceps super hard at the top, pushing the handles into the door will help with this.
4. Lower down as far as you feel comfortable before rising back up.

TRX Shoulder Exercises

The delts for short are comprised of three muscles: The anterior deltoid (front muscle); the lateral deltoid (middle muscle) and the posterior deltoid (back muscle). The front shoulder acts to raise the arm up. The middle acts to raise your upper arm out by its side and the rear deltoid muscle acts to pull the shoulders back when the elbows are raised.

To contract the shoulders throughout an exercise or when standing static think about squeezing your entire arm and in your mind picture that squeeze starting at the top of your arm.

Shoulder: Side Raises

The first exercise in this video is the TRX side raises. These are great for developing your middle shoulder muscles. The muscle that gives your physique a wider shape.

Technique Points

1. Don’t hang and rest, this takes tension off the shoulder muscle
2. Keep a short range of motion. Think ‘pumping action’. This will maintain tension and you’ll feel the burn begin to build.
3. Keep a slight bend in the elbow

Shoulder: Ys & Ts

If you love the burn and shape that developed shoulder muscles give, then you’ll enjoy doing TRX Ys and Ts. They’re not too dissimilar from each other. Just a slight change of angle for the arms, to hit the middle and rear shoulders differently.

Technique Points

1. Think zombie. Round shoulders forward remove the upper back muscles help⁣
2. Focus on slapping hands to the outer walls/roof.⁣
3. No hanging at the bottom, keep tension by stopping just before arms are straight out in front⁣
4. Internally focus on squeezing the shoulder muscles constantly, gripping the handles tight can help with this

Shoulder: Face Pulls

There’s no better exercise to build your rear shoulder muscles and strengthen your shoulder girdle than TRX Facepulls. They give that popping 4D shoulder look and dramatically improve your posture.

Technique Points

1. Hands stay in line with eyes and rotate shoulders up at the top to aid with the squeeze.⁣
2. For a more advanced level, stretch the shoulders out at the bottom for a bigger range of motion. Stick with small ranges of motion at a beginner level. Until maintaining tension through good technique becomes a habit.

Shoulder: Front Raise

This video also has the TRX front raises at 05:31. These are fantastic to hit your front shoulder muscles. Like TRX Ts and Ys, the burn builds. So too the pump from the blood rushing to shoulder muscles.

Technique Points

1. Keep a small range of motion.
2. It’s very easy to hang and relax with these shoulder exercises. Losing tension in the muscle.
3. Think pumping action.

Shoulder: Press

You need to let go of your beliefs with this one. We’re not challenging the muscle through weight, we’re challenging it through tension.

Technique Points

1. Keep an athletic shoulder stance: knees bent and core tensed⁣.
2. Don’t retract your shoulder blades back too much as you’ll incorporate back muscles. We want to isolate the shoulder muscle to keep all the tension on it.
3. Keep your arms slightly out to the side so that load is greatly shifted onto the shoulder muscle and not the joint.
4. Squeeze the shoulder muscles as hard as possible throughout the full range of motion. Focus on pushing out to the side nonstop up and down. Don’t lockout.

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TRX Core & Abs Exercises

The abs are a vast area of muscles. Most commonly we refer to the abs as the rectus abdominis, otherwise known as the 6-pack. The rectus abdominis acts to flex the spine, rotate the torso, and resist spinal extension (prevent your lower back from arching inwards).

To contract the abs when performing a specific exercise or when stabilising yourself through a range of motion think about pushing your stomach outwards or try slightly bending using your stomach to initiate and hold.

Abs: Knee To Chest

At 02:43 I’ll show you how to do ab crunches. These are a foundational exercise for your core. Very good to target the upper region of your ab muscles.

Technique Points

1. As with all TRX core exercises, the results come from keeping a powerful squeeze at the top of the exercise.
2. Then focus on a slight stretch at the bottom.

Abs: Supermans

If I could only do 1 TRX abs exercise for the rest of my life, it would be this one for 3 reasons: ⁣

• Huge stretch on the ab muscles at the top.⁣
• Powerful ab squeeze at the bottom.⁣
• Leading to a full range of motion for the abs. for better development

Technique Points

1. Stretch your abs out at the bottom, and pause there.
2. Then squeeze your abs to fold your body down.

Abs: Jack Knife

An advanced exercise that requires shoulder strength, along with core. It’s a great one to build up to using the technique in the video. Little mini jack knife’s will eventually lead to the full range of motion.

Technique Points

1. Focus on stretching your abs out at the bottom
2. With a powerful squeeze of your abs at the top as you hold the position.
3. Slow and controlled with these. No rushing through the movement. Keep tension and control by squeezing your core throughout.

Abs: Plank & Plank Side-To-Side

The TRX plank is a highly effective exercise for enhancing your core strength, stability, and endurance. By using the TRX suspension trainer, you’ll add an extra layer of difficulty to a normal plank, ensuring your entire core area is fully engaged and challenged.

Technique Points

1. The main focus is to squeeze your ab muscles the entire time.
2. Keep your bum slightly elevated to help with this.
3. Then it’s just a matter of increasing the length of time workout to workout.

Abs: Side Bends

TRX side bends are great for hitting those love handles and strengthening the sides of your core. They may look like they do nothing. But once you engage your core and focus on the squeeze throughout the exercise, you’ll feel your abs burn!

Technique Points

1. ⁣Stand just off-centre (refer to the beginning of video)⁣⁣
2. Grip with both hands⁣⁣
3. Contract shoulder blades back⁣⁣
4. Squeeze side abs hard to come back up⁣⁣
5. Try to breathe in slowly through the nose on the 4 sec downward phase⁣⁣
6. …and out through nose fast on the 1 sec upwards contraction phase

TRX Legs Exercises

Legs (quads; quadriceps)
The quads for short, are comprised of four muscles normally referred to as heads: the vastus lateralis (“quad sweep”), vastus medialis (“tear drop”), rectus femoris (the middle portion of your upper thigh) and vastus intermedius (which runs underneath the rectus femoris). The quads act to extend the knee taking it from a bent position to a straight position.

To contract the quads focus on pushing the ground in front of you away from your body. You can also try to twist your feet outwards against the resistance of the ground to aid the feeling of squeezing and thus contracting.

Legs (hamstrings)
The Hamstrings are comprised of four muscles: semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris (which consists of a long head and a short head). They have two main actions, one is to extend the knee from a straight to bent position to balance out the quads. The second is to push your hips forward.

To contract the hamstrings imagine there is a large stability ball between your heels and bum and you are trying to nip it as hard as you can. Bend your knees and really focus on dragging your feet backwards against the resistance of the floor to feel the hamstrings engage.

Bum (glutes; gluteals)
The glutes are another complex system of muscles similar to the abs. They consist of: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. The gluteus maximus is the largest of the three and performs a wide variety of actions such as hip extension, hip abduction, and hip external rotation.

It comes into play the most when stabilisation is needed from exercises such as TRX lunges or TRX pistol squat. To contract your glutes focus on trying to drag your feet backwards together at the same time. Master that feeling in this bridge position and then progress it to standing.

Legs: Pistol Squat

This video shows an advanced version of pistol squats, but the technique principles remain the same. If you’re a beginner level, focus on only going down so your knee bend is at 90 degrees.

If you’re at an advanced fitness level, get that ass to grass and go all the way down.

Technique Points

1. Focus on squeezing your quad muscles super hard at the top of the exercise
2. Lean forward slightly to place your body weight load over your quads.
3. Pause at the bottom, focus your mind (mind-muscle connection) on squeezing your quad muscles to come back up.

Legs: Front Lunge

It’s easy to lean forward and place load onto quad with these TRX Front Lunges. But, I believe it is more beneficial to target the hamstring muscles and leave the quads for the Reverse lunges below.

With that in mind, we want to slightly reduce the range of motion. If you straighten your leg at the top, you’ll bring in the quad muscle. Which will then take tension away from the hamstrings.

Technique Points.

1. To lower yourself down, squeeze your hamstrings and glutes to pull your body down. Don’t drop. Pull.
2. Pause at the bottom then squeeze your hamstrings again super hard to rise back up.
3. Stop just before your leg straightens out, and go back down by squeezing your hamstrings and glutes.

Legs: Reverse Lunge

The TRX step reverse lunge can be done with a slight step for greater variation. Or without. I believe they are best used to target your outer quad muscle. Your inner and middle quad will get a lot of development from front lunges and squats.

Technique Points

1. Don’t lock out and squeeze at the top. This will take tension away from the outer quad because the inner quad muscle joins in to straighten the leg.
2. Twist your foot inwards very slightly. I personally find this helps emphasise the load onto the outer quad.
3. Lean slightly forward throughout to keep the load on quad muscles.
4. Knee to the floor. Gently tap it, don’t rest it. Then rise.

Legs: Quad Squats

If you want to build leg width with a TRX, this is the squat technique that will do it. The key technique focus is to constantly push your feet outwards against the floor on both the up and down squat phases.

This isolates the outer quad (the sweep), and places your body weight load onto it. Training without this mindful technique means you are just moving up and down.⁣

So the load is shared across all your leg muscles. And you get a weak muscle-building stimulus across them all. Instead, when you isolate the outer quad, and place all the load onto it. You get a greater muscle-building stimulus, and your leg muscle grows noticeably.

Why the outer quad leg muscle? It’s the chunky muscle on the outside of your leg and gives great shape and definition when developed.

Technique Points

1. Push feet outwards against the floor while squatting up and down
2. A super hard squeeze of the quads at the top, again by pushing feet outwards
3. Pause at the bottom and stay there before rising back up by pushing feet outwards. It will feel uncomfortable. That’s good.

Legs: Hamstring Squats

Taking a wide stance allows you to sit back and deep into the squat position to engage your hamstrings and glutes.

Technique Points

1. Imagine there is a stability ball between your bum and your heels and you are trying to squeeze it powerfully. With this in mind, don’t drop down, squeeze your hamstrings and glutes to pull your body down.
2. Don’t straighten your legs at the top. This will take tension away from your hamstring muscles because the quads come into play.
3. To squat up, re-focus your mind to continue squeezing the glutes and hamstrings hard to rise. Take it slow and controlled.

Legs: Hamstring Curls

Don’t be fooled by a simple exercise that involves bringing your heels to your bum. It may look easy, but the time under tension and strong squeeze at the top of these TRX hamstring curls is powerful.

Technique Points

1. Raise your bum off the ground slightly.
2. Go slowly on the negative phase, where you straighten your legs out. This is the part that leads to the strength and muscle gains.
3. Focus on a powerful squeeze at the top and hold your heels to your bum for 2 seconds minimum.

Legs: Calf Raises

A simple exercise but one that requires a slightly different technique approach to get better development. The calf muscles are mainly comprised of slow twitch fibres.

They are very resilient.⁣ And respond well when placed under constant tension for large amounts of time.⁣

Technique Points

1. Go very slow up and down. Progress by adding a backpack with weight.⁣ Or by doing one leg at a time.⁣
2. At the bottom stretch the calves right out. At the top squeeze as hard as you can.⁣ Use the TRX for balance, and slightly lean back to add tension to support your body.⁣

Next Steps

Now you’ve got the exercise knowledge with this ultimate TRX exercises list. I can help you with the right workout and nutrition plan to build lean muscle and transform your body…

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View all the TRX Suspension Training Body Transformation Programs here.

Your TRX Guru,
Coach Adam
Body Transformation Coach

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