Strap Training. Long behind me are the days of being a gym rat. Get up at 6am to drive to the local gym. Then pour copious amounts of protein and muscle enhancing supplements down my neck. Then pump iron until that vein pops so far out my head I start to look like I’m about to explode.

Instead as the years go by I tend to thing a little more easy. Enjoing more of the outdoors rather than being stuck in an air-conditioned sweat pit illuminated by bright fluorescent lighting and music that would have a hardcore 90s raver struggling to keep up. I still like to keep in shape though both to feel good and help get the best out of hobbies. Hiking, mountaineering and rucking are great but focus more on fitness and lower-body strength.

Having been off of resistance training for over 10 years, I recently fancied getting back into it. My hikes were growing longer (recently an 80km 20 hour hike). My packs were growing heavier I wanted my body strength up and fitness related surprises away. There were some obstacles however:

• I didn’t want however to join a gym: too costly, ‘not my thing’ anymore and some of the above reasons.
• I also didn’t want to spend lots of cash on home gym equipment. been there and bought the sweaty rag that comes with it. It’s expensive equipment for something that will likely be forgotten about once the enthusiasm wears thin. Then end up getting sold second hand for 50% of what you paid for it. Oh, and I live in a small apartment so logistically, it’s not even possible.

There are two mains ways of increasing difficulty.

That sounds like physics-class subject but it’s not. Just an over complicated way of saying change your footing. By doing this, the difficulty can dramatically increase or decrease.

Move your feet further away from the door bottom and the exercise will become easier. Your legs will take more of your body weight and your arms will have to do less. This is great when starting out, especially if you haven’t hit a gym in a while or are on the heavy side as this is essentially a body weight workout. The heavier you are, the more weight your pushing.

Move your feet closer to the anchor point and the intensity will quickly ramp up. Some people go as far as placing their feet on door frames however for two reasons, that’s something I haven’t tried yet and probably won’t be doing in the future. Here’s why:

1. The build quality of my apartment is somewhat questionable. I am staggered that the door I used hasn’t collapsed on me yet given all the creeks and flexing it does (I do however alway place some cushions on the tile floor incase something does happen). The idea of that extra lateral force pulling a 30kg glass door naturally out of it’s frame toward me whilst most of my weight is suspended from it isn’t too comforting.
2. By placing your feet actually on the door increases difficult ten-fold. I’m not talking 20% more challenging. You will probably double the equivalent weight your are pushing/lifting and my strength just isn’t there, never mind that extra stress on your shoulder joints. They will be taking the brunt of most of the exercises in some way.

Which brings me to increasing difficulty by…

Nope. Don’t go and grab a KFC family bucket and fill your face. I mean grab something heavy and strap it to yourself.

I do it by using the backpack I use for rucking which normally fits my 10kg weight disc and that works just fine. Take any kind of ruck, load it up, cinch it down and get to it! If you have a Goruck and want to find out how to integrate a weight disc, follow our guide here.

The nice thing about this method is that it increases difficulty at a linear pace allowing you gradually ramp the weight up instead of going from your feet the base of the door frame to scaling the frame which I estimate is a 2x equivalent weight increase.

Like any home workout equipment, if you don’t have the motivation or want to put the time in, it will end up on eBay or Craigslist in about 6 months from now. One of the beauties of strap training though, is you can (probably) afford to take that risk a lot more than you can with say an €800 home-multi-gym. A downside is, if you are looking for Schwarzenegger type biceps, this isn’t your answer.

The versatility is also appealing. It is accessible to all shapes and sizes with zero strength training experience required.

Space isn’t an issue either if you are like myself and live in small accommodation. All that is needed is a solid door frame with clearance around it or a park nearby.

I would thoroughly recommend a strap training system to anybody looking for a quick home-workout solution any day.