Best Suspension Trainer | 7 Best Suspended Workout Straps

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As the popularity of home gyms continues to grow, home gym equipment is also becoming a favorite. However, many of them aren’t easy to bring into the home due to either space or costs.

In comes the suspension trainer, which has stolen the hearts of fitness enthusiasts worldwide. This portable piece of equipment is the perfect partner for home gym owners after a full-body workout without spending a ton of money.

Whether you’re into strength training, calisthenics gear, CrossFit, or lifting, suspension trainers can take your workouts up a level.

Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about suspension training.

What Are Suspension Trainers?

Before purchasing any new home gym equipment, it helps to know what you’re getting. If you’ve heard of suspension training but aren’t sure what it is, you don’t have to live in suspense any longer as we’re here to help.

A suspension trainer is a piece of gym equipment that’s swept through fitness culture all over the world. It consists of straps and handles that are suspended off the floor and can be mounted on a variety of objects.

Think of them a little something like the gymnastic rings or monkey bars that are just suspended on a door frame, ceiling, and the like. While they can be found in most commercial gyms, they’re particularly trendy for use in home gyms.

Suspension trainers have become a hot commodity thanks to their portability and ability to build up different muscles. Thanks to their adjustability and versatility, they provide users with various exercise options (more on this later).

Also, they’re one of those pieces of home gym equipment that won’t take up too much space in the house. Plus, they don’t cost a ton.

While using a suspension trainer has many benefits, the main ones are enhanced muscle engagement, core training, and improved mobility/balance and functional performance.

Best Suspension Trainers Buying Guide

Since the market is saturated with suspension trainers, it can be difficult to choose which ones are worth putting your buying power behind. To help you, we’ve come up with a guide on the important things to look out for.

Quality

When purchasing suspension trainer straps, it goes without saying that they need to be of the highest quality. This goes for both the material used to construct the suspension trainer and how well they can take a beating.

The best products for suspension training are typically made with nylon straps and handles covered in thick foam-like material. The buckles, anchors, clips, and mounts are made of high-quality metals that ensure you’re safe at all times.

Comfort

When it comes to your workout routine, we don’t recommend adopting a “no pain, no gain” approach. To ensure comfort, be sure to purchase a suspension trainer with rubber handles and grip treads. Also, opt for a pair that is adjustable in length for exercise variation and different heights.

Weight Capacity

Depending on your preferred exercises, you’ll need a suspension trainer system that can handle your own body weight. If you are using any additional weights like weighted vests, then make sure the item can handle that too.

Mounting Mechanism

Suspension trainers provide the luxury of being able to choose a system that attaches to a variety of objects. They can connect to a pull-up bar, the ceiling, a door frame, and more. You just have to choose a model suited for what you have at your disposal.

Extras

While this isn’t extremely important, extras sure do sweeten the deal for any purchase. In this instance, we’re referring to video guides, booklets, posters, and the like. These extras are handy for beginners who may not be too sure how to go about suspension training.

Another great extra would be a storage bag for traveling so you can take your suspension training system with you wherever you go.

7 Best Suspension Trainers for Home Gyms

The number of suspension trainers on the market can be daunting. Not only do you have to look at different brands, but you also have to look at different products, build quality, how they’re mounted, and more. Afterward, you have to factor in your home gym size, your budget, and the system’s weight capacity.

Luckily, you can rest at ease as we’ve done the research and tried out various TRX suspension systems, so you don’t have to. We’ve tested and compared several of them and have come up with a list of the best ones for different people… to ensure you’re not left hanging.

It’s only right that we start off the list with some TRX equipment, given they’ve been one of the industry leaders on suspension training. During our testing, we found that this all-in-one system performs incredibly well for various fitness and skill levels.

An incredible addition is the training manual it comes with, which we think is essential for novice users. There’s also a trial of the TRX Training Club app included in your purchase, which may explain its relatively high price.

It was also able to work indoors and outdoors thanks to its anchors that allow for mounting on door frames, tree branches, and more. Use is not limited to the home, though. You can easily pack it in its bag and take it with you for exercising in various locations.

While we appreciated the locking slide system and foam handles’ comfort, we could feel the wear on our hands after repeated uses. During testing, we also found that it boasts adjustable foot cradles and handles to allow for versatility in height and exercise variety.

If you prefer getting your suspension trainer reps outdoors, you won’t go wrong with this TRX offering. It’s made to take an outdoor beating with industrial-strength construction and protective UV coating. Perhaps surprising to us was how lightweight it was, given its rather bulky build.

Further, it comes with full access to a TRX Force program and a DVD that has a guide on the best exercises. Despite this, we wouldn’t recommend this for beginners due to its obviously high price tag and because it was made with experienced users in mind.

The handles are made of rubber, and the padded foot cradles are purposely oversized to accommodate various shoes, including combat boots and trainers. However, we did find that trainers would slip through sometimes during our tests.

While meant for the outdoors, it does come with door and extension anchors for the indoors. For an extra challenge, choose to go for higher anchor points with the extension straps.

Like any other TRX suspension system, there’s a locking loop design that ensures the straps remain secure throughout your workouts.

Versatile, portable, challenging, and fun — these are some of the words we’d use to describe this product. It’s an incredible piece of fitness equipment that can be used to work out the entire body through various exercises.

What sets these apart from other suspension systems are the Slastix bands that make even the easiest of exercises a little more difficult. These add some instability to the session and force users to train functional movement. If you find that to be too hard, you can easily remove the bands to revert to a stable training environment.

During our analysis, we did find that the buckles were a little lower compared to the other systems, and this did slightly obstruct our session. This was a minor issue that was easy to overlook thanks to the fact that the straps were separate. The separation allows for increased or decreased width for certain exercises.

Are you suffering from a lack of space in your apartment or house? Then the Lifeline Jungle Gym XT is the perfect addition to your home gym equipment. Of the systems we tested, we found that it was the one that didn’t need much space to be used effectively.

The rubber handles and foot cradles are pretty comfortable, but they could do with a rolling mechanism like the TRX systems. This is something we will happily concede given how much value we derived from this affordable piece of workout equipment.

It boasts a rather unique split anchor design, meaning anchors are found on the ends of the straps. This allows for increased or decreased width, offering more exercises to you. And, it targets more muscle groups than the typical single anchor systems.

If, like us, you aren’t too well-versed in the split anchor version, you’ll be happy to follow their workout videos. These are tailored for different fitness levels.

While it’s a bit bulkier compared to some of the other systems we tested, we appreciated the compact design that allowed for easy travel.

If you’re on a budget but still want to get a suspension trainer, don’t fret. There’s an option just for you. It’s this resistance trainer kit from FITINDEX, which we found to be surprisingly great for its price point.

While you can mount it to any horizontal or vertical object indoors and outdoors, we found the lack of a door anchoring system disappointing. On the brighter side, the kit includes an extended strap design that allows for even more exercise variety. If you aren’t too sure what you’d like to do, let the fitness action guide lead you to the land of gains.

Another disappointing aspect we found was the fact that it has one of the longer exercise straps of all the systems, even when adjusted. This means it’s not suited for tall people or short spaces and pull-ups were nearly impossible. However, knock yourself out if you’re into row-type exercises.

Another touch that we think you’ll also appreciate is the inclusion of resistance bands, which come in different difficulty levels. Something else that surprised us (again, because of the price) is its incredible weight capacity.

Backpackers and frequent travelers rejoice, your new best friend in fitness has arrived. While it won’t help spot you, it’ll help you work out anywhere and at any time. This TRX trainer is super portable and doesn’t take minutes to set up.

It weighs less than a pound and comes with a free travel bag, meaning it’s the best TRX system for frequent travelers. The foam-covered plastic handles and foot cradles are supported by a locking loop that works to prevent slipping. However, we did notice that the handles showed wear after some months of use.

Unfortunately, the handles absorb a lot of sweat compared to other systems, which may lead to odor retention. We found that one way to combat this was to wear our gym gloves.

Despite its compact design, this has a lot of workout potential that can be fully maximized with the provided routine poster and a 30-day trial on the TRX training club. However, the lack of adjustable foot stirrups left us a bit disappointed.

Its weight capacity is pretty incredible considering its light build. You won’t go wrong with this product.

Last but not least in the list of the top suspension training systems is the TRX Sweat System, which is a great all-rounder. It best serves as a great alternative to the GO Suspension for traveling TRX systems. It’s suited for all fitness levels with a variety of exercises on offer.

This suspension trainer includes length-adjustable suspension straps and can be set up in less than a minute just about anywhere. In your house, a tree branch in the park playground, at the hotel, an airport — we won’t judge.

Compared to the TRX GO Suspension, the durable foam handles don’t hold in that much sweat, which may be the explanation for why it’s relatively more expensive than the former. On the other hand, we also shared the exact sentiment of disappointment as the GO Suspension due to the lack of adjustability in the foot stirrups.

Pack it in your mesh bag, make your way to your destination, then whip it out and let the workout downloads guide you. Further, be sure to use your free TRX training club trial to help you get fitter faster.

Suspension Training Straps Exercise Options

As mentioned above, suspension workouts are extremely versatile and offer many exercise options for just about anyone. This includes use in building upper body and lower body muscle and strength.

Upper body exercises mostly target the shoulders, chest, arms, back, abs, and more. Lower body sessions typically focus on hamstring, quad, and glute exercises. There is also a mixture of exercises that work on the entire body rather than one section.

So, regardless of what you want to work on, a suspension trainer is more often than not ready to help. Here are a few of the many exercises available to you with this system.

• Bicep curls
• Tricep dips
• Atomic push-ups
• Chest press
• Squats
• Jumping lunges
• Hamstring pull-in
• Glute bridge
• Single-leg burpees
• Spiderman push-ups
• Plank
• Side plank

Final Thoughts on the Best Suspension Bands

Suspension training kits are one of the best home gym pieces of equipment. Not only are they versatile, but they’re helpful for fitness enthusiasts of all levels. There’s an opportunity to work on various parts of the body while you build muscle or burn fat.

Before purchasing a suspension trainer, be sure to consider the information found in the buying guide above. This will help you buy the most suitable system for your environment, house size, body type, and more. Once you’ve made your choice, get ready to feel the burn and reap the rewards of suspension training.

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