Free Downloadable TRX Workout Plan PDF: Upper Body Challenge

Free Downloadable TRX Workout Plan PDF With Upper Body Theme: Created Using The Online Pilates Lesson Planner

The free downloadable TRX workout plan (see below) was created by one of our members using the Pilates Lesson Planner.

It’s a TRX workout PDF that targets the upper body.

There are 100,000+ pre-filled and editable Pilates lesson plans within the Pilates Lesson Planner and new plans are added every single day.

It is really easy creating a TRX workout plan using the Pilates Lesson Planner because you’re able to search for exercises using an Exercise Category Filter. For example, if you click “TRX” you’ll get instant access to dozens of TRX exercises. There are 84 filters that help you find the perfect exercise quickly and easily (e.g. “arm balance”, “back bend”, “hip opener”, “side bend, “twist).

Free Downloadable TRX Workout Plan PDF: Upper Body Challenge

Each Pilates lesson plan created using the Pilates Lesson Planner has a “Pilates teacher version” (long version with teaching directions), a “student practice sheet” (short version for your students and for you to take into class to teach from), and a “stream version” (video stream of the lesson plan).

TRX Workout Plan: Upper Body Challenge (long version PDF)

TRX Workout Plan: Upper Body Challenge (short version PDF)

TRX Workout Plan: Upper Body Challenge (stream version)

If you liked that TRX workout plan, you might like this free Joseph Pilates matwork class plan with all 34 Joseph Pilates exercises or this free downloadable beginners Pilates matwork lesson plan.

What Does TRX Stand For?

TRX which stands for Total-body Resistance Exercise

What Are The 8 Main Benefits Of TRX Suspension Training? 

The 8 main benefits of TRX suspension training are: 

Benefit 1: Total-body Workout

There isn’t another type of exercise that gives the same kind of total body workout as TRX exercises. TRX exercises use your own body weight to sculpt and stretch every muscle and joint in your body. You’ll build hand strength, arm strength, core strength, lower body strength, and upper body strength.

Benefit 2: Improve Flexibility

The benefits of improved flexibility are (1) Better posture which makes you feel younger and more confident (2) Improved physical performance (3) Allowing your muscles to work efficiently (4) Improved ability to perform daily activities without aches and pains.

Benefit 3: Improve Balance

Your balance and coordination will improve. Improving balance is highly underrated.

The benefits of improved balance are:

• Reduced risk of injury
• Improved concentration
• Increased life span
• Reduced chance of getting arthritis
• Back pain and other health issues
• Making you brighter by improving cognitive functioning

Benefit 4: Improve Joint Stability

Improving joint stability might not sound very exciting, but when you cross the 30-year-old barrier, you’ll definitely want to pay closer attention to your joint stability.

The benefits of improved joint stability are (1) joints move at their optimum range of motion (2) Preventing your joints from grinding together and wearing out – this causes constantly simmering, lingering pain.

Benefit 5: Fun Factor

You will feel like Superman or Superwoman when performing TRX because you are suspended and will be using your own body weight. This is surprisingly a lot of fun and you’ll release a bunch of happy endorphins as you work out.

Benefit 6: Steel Core

Who doesn’t want a steel core? I do, and it’s not just for getting admiring looks when surfing (hmmm, it would help if I surfed).

To me personally, the main benefit of a strong core is to take the pressure off my spine. You’re only as young as your spine. If you’ve got a weak core, your back muscles and spine will be extremely upset with you because you’ve doomed them. If you have back pain, it’s almost certainly due to a weak core.

Consider this factoid. Approximately 4 out of 5 adults in the UK (that’s a stunning 80% of the population) experience low back pain at some point in their lifetimes. It’s the most common cause of job-related disability and the number one leading contributor to missed work days.

Benefit 8: One Training Tool

I like things to be simple. With this one training tool that is portable and takes up almost no space (unlike a Cadillac machine), you can become Superman or Superwoman.

Benefit 8: Save Time

You can minimise your training time by switching from one TRX exercise to the next in a few seconds.

TRX Core Stability Theme 

In this lesson plan (that you downloaded above), you’ll have fun with TRX balancing exercises, and also give your body and mind an amazing workout. Each balance exercise can be used to build strength in different body parts, muscles and joints.

11 Balance Exercises Benefits:

1. Release value for built-up stress.
2. Improve focus.
3. Improves memory.
4. Remain calm on the inside when chaos rages on the outside.
5. Improves peak performance (if you’re an athlete).
6. Find your centre of gravity and dance around its edges.
7. Create a sense of fluid stability.
8. Bathe in a calm equanimity.
9. Builds coordination.
10. Improve how your stand, walk and run.
11. Help avoid falls (especially for the elderly).

7 Tips For Teaching Balance: In A Pilates Class

Whenever I come up with a “theme” for a Pilates lesson plan (e.g. Bathe In Balance), I make sure to constantly soak (forgive the pun) my students in that theme throughout the class.

For example, when creating my TRX workout plan, I spent a few hours reading as much as I could about the benefits of balancing, so I could talk about it during the class.

Here are 7 balance tips that you can share with your students…

Balance Tip 1: Gravitational Field

The main benefit of practising balance exercises is finding balance in body and mind.

When we balance, we align our body’s centre of gravity with the earth’s gravitational field. We place ourselves in physical equilibrium with a fundamental force of nature. But we can’t achieve this harmony by remaining absolutely still. We need to refresh our balance from moment to moment. The sustained effort to centre and recenter brings the entire body (nerve impulses, thoughts, emotions, and consciousness) into a calm balance.

Balance brings equanimity. With each moment that you struggle in a balance exercise, you are training yourself to remain calm in the chaos.

Balance Tip 2: Three Essential Elements Of Balance

The three essential elements of balance are alignment, strength, and attention.

Alignment of the body with gravity is crucial; it makes balance physically possible. Strength gives us the power to create, hold, and adjust alignment. And attention continually monitors alignment so we know how to correct it from one moment to the next.

Balance Tip 3: Tightrope Walker

Every time you use your arms to balance by holding them out to the sides like a tightrope walker, you’re intuitively taking advantage of the fact that as the weight moves away from your centre of gravity, it has a greater effect on your equilibrium.

If you have difficulty in any balance exercises (especially one-legged balances), use your arms to help stabilise yourself.

Balance Tip 4: Spread Your Toes Like A Duck

You can enhance your equilibrium in standing balance poses by spreading your toes. The broader your base, the more stable you are, and even the slightest widening of the sole of the foot are helpful. Imagine you’re a duck with webbed feet!

Balance Tip 5: Brain Verses Brawn

The better you get at balance, the less muscular effort you need to maintain them.

This is because you become more skilled at using your bone structure to support your weight, rather than wasting muscle energy to do so. You also waver less, so you need to make fewer and smaller muscular corrections.

It is important not to try to muscle your way through balancing poses.

Don’t replace good alignment with brute force. If you find yourself clenching the floor with your toes, white-knuckled, there’s a good chance you are using too much brawn and not enough brain.

Balance Tip 6:  Plumb Line

Since the brain compares your actual position with an image of where you want to be, it helps to have a pretty precise internal image.

One very useful image is to imagine a plumb line running down the point of balance.

Developing a strong internal sense of this line will help your nervous system calibrate movements that maintain equilibrium along the line.

Balance Tip 7: Be Like A Child Learning To Stand

At a higher level of the nervous system, your attitude toward practising balancing poses has a huge effect on your success. Approach them seriously and with determination, but also with good humour, patience, and curiosity. Be like a child learning to stand.

If you can laugh when you wobble or fall, yet be ready to try the exercise again, you have discovered a secret that millions are searching for.

My Final Thoughts On TRX Exercises

Whether you want a total-body workout, improve flexibility, improve balance, improve joint stability, or load up on those happy endorphins, you’ll wish you had started TRX training years ago.

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