MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Marines are now able to take a full-spectrum TRX workout anywhere they go.
Marine Corps Community Services signed a five-year contract with TRX in July, which opened the door for units to purchase the company's new Tactical Training Lockers.
Ranging from $5,000 for a 4-foot by 3-foot box to $25,000 for a 20-foot-long shipping container, the deployable training system can be assembled to provide a full heavy-duty, endurable gym in any climate or environment. The gear inside is fully compatible with the Marine Corps' functional fitness program, High Intensity Tactical Training.
"Everything is secured, so once it's set up, you open it up, pull out the bits and pieces for a workout, and in 15 minutes you're set to train 40 guys," Randy Hetrick, TRX's chief executive officer, told Marine Corps Times Wednesday at the Modern Day Marine exposition here.
Hetrick, who served as a Navy SEAL from 1988 to 2001, created the popular TRX — short for total resistance exercise — suspension trainer. He had the idea to develop the lockers after receiving feedback from Marines deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan who were rigging suspension trainers in the field.
The TRX model allows Marines to train like professional athletes with a multifaceted workout.
"Ultimately, if you're training the perfect tactical athlete, you want a mixed modality workout: you want to do lifts, you want to do suspension training, you want to do movement," Hetrick said. "So we thought in terms of training Marines like pro athletes."
TRX teamed with exercise equipment producer Sorinex to come up with a solution to provide a full workout to Marines in the field.
Since the inception of the Marine's HITT program, TRX has shipped more than 100 lockers out to various units.
Now that the TRX Tactical Training Lockers have become a vetted program of record, Hetrick hopes to institutionalize the kits across the services.
"The goal is to move it across on the operations side," he said. "It's not 'recreation' to have Marines and soldiers be in fighting condition, it's an operational requirement."
