For more information or to place your order, visit our GTX Suspension Gym website.

Although I’ve written about how the GTX has been in development for about a year and a half (we’ve been seriously working on the product for about a year), the complete roots of the GTX can actually be traced back to early 2008, to my introduction to suspended bodyweight exercise.

My first foray into suspended bodyweight exercise came in early 2008 when I stumbled across some message boards where fitness enthusiasts were singing the praises of exercising with gymnastics rings. I was immediately fascinated by this type of exercise, so I started to research various products before I decided which one to buy. At the time I saw the TRX, but I just laughed it off as an overpriced gimmick product, and I ended up buying a set of gymnastics rings called Xtreme Rings.

I was very happy with my set of Xtreme Rings, although they didn’t come with any information on what exercises could be performed with them, so I only really ended up using them for three exercises: dips, chest presses, and rows. Still, I was quite satisfied with the Xtreme Rings, and for a couple of months I used my set of rings in my personal workouts and also with my one-on-one personal training clients.

In May 2008 I launched my outdoor boot camp program, and I bought three more sets of Xtreme Rings for my boot camp.

The rings worked pretty well at my boot camp, but the straps took a while to setup and adjust, and the rings themselves were very heavy and cumbersome to carry to and from the park for my boot camp workouts. Also, the rings were not ideal for various new exercises that I was learning (exercises that require you to put your feet in the rings), so I decided to look elsewhere and try to find a product more suited for my needs.

Again I looked at the TRX, but again I laughed it off as an overpriced gimmick. It just looked like one of those flashy but useless products that you see advertised on TV at 2 o’clock in the morning, so I passed on the TRX, and bought what I felt was a superior product at a small fraction of the price of the TRX. I bought a product called Vegas Pro Straps.

The Vegas Pro Straps looked awful (no logos, crooked stitching, loose threads, cheap handles, paint bubbling and chipping off the cam buckles, etc), but they functioned ok, so I was happy with them. I ended up buying 15 sets of VPS to use at my boot camp program.

I started having various problems with the Vegas Pro Straps because they’re a dual-anchor suspension strap system that isn’t designed to be setup to a single-anchor attachment. Whenever I attached two VPS straps to a tree or post, I found that one strap would hit the other strap which could release one of the cam buckles while the user was exercising with it. Very dangerous and we had a couple of close calls before I realized the problem and got rid of the Vegas Pro Straps.

Again, I went back to looking at the TRX, and I spoke to a sales rep at Fitness Anywhere (makers of the TRX) who educated me on the benefits of their product, and ended up buying 15 TRXs for my boot camp.

This was back in August of 2008, and the TRX worked very well at my boot camp. The single-anchor TRX design definitely has limitations and for many exercises is nowhere near as comfortable as a dual-anchor suspension gym, but in general I thought (and continue to think) that the TRX is a very good product.

When I bought all the TRXs for my boot camp, I also registered for the TRX Suspension Training course. The TRX course was pretty cool, and I learned a lot of good info at the course, but the All Body Xpress workout they put us through at the course was one of the worst workouts I’ve ever experienced, and that was a common theme in my experience with TRX workouts made by Fitness Anywhere, and played a crucial role in the eventual creation of the GTX Suspension Gym.

Because later in ’08 when I started getting into affiliate marketing, I wanted to promote the TRX on my YouTube channel, but I did NOT (and do NOT) believe that Fitness Anywhere offers quality workout programming with the TRX, so I wanted to develop and release my own suspension gym workout videos and DVDs using the TRX. That never panned out for far too many reasons than I’ll go into here, and I began searching for an alternative product to use in conjunction with my own suspension gym workouts.

This was in early 2009, and at the time I went back to the Vegas Pro Straps guys and tried to work with them to improve their design and craftsmanship of the VPS. I had a number of ideas on how to improve the VPS so that it was a product I was proud to promote and sell alongside my own suspension gym workouts. That never panned out because I was unable to get the VPS product to a design that I was comfortable promoting and selling, and I proceeded to spin my wheels for a while trying to find a company who could manufacturer a suspension gym product to my exact specifications (specs that I felt would be a superior product to the TRX).

After spinning my wheels on this venture for a few months, around the middle of 2009 I found a group of partners with extensive experience producing quality exercise equipment, and we officially started developing the GTX Suspension Gym.

Over a year later, we’re starting production on the GTX, and it will be released in September. It’s been a long journey to get to this point, but if it had happened any other way I probably wouldn’t have acquired the knowledge and experience about these types of products that’s necessary to ensure that the GTX will be a huge success right out of the gate.

Because of this experience, I know exactly about the benefits and limitations of the single-anchor design vs. the dual-anchor design, and I was therefore able to develop a suspension gym that has all of the benefits of single and dual-anchor workout strap systems, and none of the drawbacks. This is the reason why the GTX Suspension Gym is better than any single or dual-anchor bodyweight workout strap system on the market, and this is why the GTX Suspension Gym is the most versatile and effective piece of exercise equipment ever created.

Would you say that all of the exercises that are doable on a TRX system can also be done on the GTX?

The answer is yes, absolutely. Any exercise you can perform on the TRX can also be done on the GTX, and with the GTX you can also perform a bunch of exercises that are impossible to perform on the TRX (e.g. dips, pullups, muscle-ups, hanging leg raises).

When comparing the GTX Suspension Gym to the TRX Suspension Trainer, there’s no question about which product is superior. The GTX does everything the TRX does, plus a bunch of things that TRX can’t do.

If you’re looking for the best suspension gym on the market, don’t waste your money on a TRX. Instead choose the far more versatile and effective GTX Suspension Gym.

If you read my post on agility ladders, I commented on how I recently saw a Vancouver boot camp program doing agility ladder drills with their overweight customers. This is a boot camp that markets itself as a fat-burning exercise program. The idea of having overweight people do agility ladder drills to burn fat is ridiculous.

Anyway, I ranted about it the other night when I wrote that blog post. It felt good getting it off my chest and I figured this was a topic I probably wouldn’t complain about again for a while. Wrong.

So last Thursday night when I arrived at my evening boot camp, one of my customers said she noticed the other Vancouver boot camp program doing agility drills with their customers, and she saw a women have a pretty nasty fall while trying to navigate through a set of agility cones and hurdles the boot camp had setup. This goofy fat-burning agility training workout was taking place on concrete.

I cringe whenever see average men and women doing agility training during a workout designed to produce fat-burning and general fitness. There is absolutely no reason to include those types of drills in a boot camp workout program geared towards burning fat and improved fitness. With average people doing agility training at a fitness boot camp, the risk of injury is high, and agility training is completely pointless for fat loss.

I saw a Vancouver boot camp program using the agility ladder with their customers the other night and it made me sad for all the customers that signed up for the program thinking they were going to burn fat and get in shape, only to have their time and effort flushed down the toilet on a drill that has absolutely no place in a fat-burning exercise program.

The problem with the agility ladder is that unless you’ve got the speed and agility of professional athlete, there’s no way you can navigate through the ladder intensely enough to actually produce any significant fat-burning results. You might as well just play hopscotch with your kid because you’ll be getting about the same amount of cardiovascular workout and fat-burning from playing hopscotch as you would from doing agility ladder drills.

Agility ladders should be used by athletes looking to — wait for it — improve their agility. If you’re looking to burn maximum fat with the most time-efficient workouts possible, avoid the agility ladder at all costs.

Despite the lunch hour BJJ workout being incredibly intense, at one point during the workout I recall saying to Dave (owner of Universal MMA) that “I didn’t know it was possible to have this much fun while working out.” I wasn’t kidding around. It was a serious comment. I had a blast during one of the most intense workouts I’ve ever done. Sure it was grueling and difficult, but it was way more fun than just going to the gym and lifting weights or running on the treadmill.

The easiest way to get fit and stay fit is to find an activity that you enjoy that also doubles as a fantastic workout. If you can find an activity where you’re doing one of the most intense workouts of your life, and saying “I didn’t know it was possible to have this much fun while working out”, you will truly have found yourself a workout program that will produce lasting results.

If you’re in Vancouver and are interested in learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from one of the top instructors in Canada (Shane Rice, BJJ black belt under Rickson Gracie), I highly recommend you check out Universal MMA.

What follows is what I like and dislike about the TRX.

I like that the single-anchor TRX is very quick to setup and adjust. Our dual-anchor GTX includes handy adjustment markers to make the setup and adjustment faster than any dual-anchor suspension gym in the world, but a dual-anchor suspension gym, with two separate straps to setup and adjust, will never be as quick and easy to adjust as the single-anchor TRX.

I like that the TRX comes in a fancy box that’s made of completely recyclable post-consumer content. Neat.

That’s it for my TRX likes.

Although not a complete list, here are some things I dislike about the TRX.

I dislike that the single-anchor TRX rubs on my head, neck, and shoulders when doing chest presses, chest flys, and triceps extensions.

I dislike that the single-anchor TRX doesn’t allow for dips or pullups.

I dislike that there are no ab slings included with the TRX, and for that matter I dislike that the single-anchor TRX design makes it impossible to use with ab slings.

I dislike that many of the TRX exercises promoted by Fitness Anywhere are fairly stupid, if not completely useless, and seem to serve very little purpose other than building up the number of exercises Fitness Anywhere claims you can perform on the TRX.

I dislike that the TRX is mostly marketed towards athletes and sport-specific training, with very little quality content for average people just looking to burn fat and improve their fitness with time-efficient home workouts.

But the good thing about my TRX dislikes is that all of those shortcomings of the TRX are creating a big demand in the marketplace for a high-quality dual-anchor suspension gym designed for the average person who’s looking to burn fat and get fit exercising at home. That’s exactly why I created the GTX Suspension Gym.

Are the weight lbs on the clips of the Elite Cords?

My response (sent via email and reposted here):

No, because it’s impossible to accurately put poundage weight on resistance bands. The tension of the bands is based on how much you stretch them out. If you’re a 5’2″ person doing biceps curls with the red band, the weight of the band would be significantly different than if you were a 6’4″ person biceps curls with the red. Shoulder press is even more noticeable. When you’re using the door anchors, the tension will change depending on how far you are from the anchor point.

Bodylastics puts poundage weights on their resistance bands and I think it’s absurd to do that because the poundage numbers are so inaccurate.

Since the Elite Cords resistance bands system is a new product, surely many people will be comparing our product to Bodylastics, which have been around for over 10 years. The weight equivalents that are printed on Bodylastics clips are nothing more than a gimmick. The poundage numbers are completely meaningless and useless, much like the bad aerobics workout DVD included with Bodylastics, or the atrocious meathead workouts they do on their website.

For resistance squats, I used all five bands, and for reverse flys I used just the orange band for the first set, and orange plus yellow for the second set.

Having two sets of handles saved me a ton of time and hassle switching bands during the the workout. If I had only had one set of handles, I would have had to unclip 4 bands before doing the reverse flys. So having the extra set of handles cut my adjustment time in more than half.

Having the extra set of handles is a really big perk that cuts down on your exercise time and makes the workout much more enjoyable because you’re not constantly fiddling around clipping and unclipping bands. That is why we include two sets of handles with every Elite Cords system.

[...] no one (regardless of their level of discretionary income) should buy a single-anchor suspension trainer like the TRX. By design, single-anchor trainers have an extremely limited range of exercises, and a significant percentage of those must be grossly modified to prevent the straps from abrading the neck, traps and shoulders. Those modifications not only reduce the effectiveness of the movement, but also contribute to acute injury and repetitive motion damage.

Here’s a screenshot for posterity: