Recent times have shown us firsthand the importance of maintaining an active lifestyle. Suspension training has become the cornerstone of minimalistic bodyweight exercising, a hot topic in the home workout bloom where home gym equipment with a small footprint paired with versatility rules. In this regard, suspension straps are hard to beat, providing the opportunity to exercise in the comfort of your own home, gym, backyard, or park regardless of your skill level.
In this review the NOSSK Twin Pro strap came out on top, representing great quality and usability for the fraction of the price, leaving big names behind. With only one feature different in its design, this home gym equipment immediately qualified itself as one of the best suspension trainers on the market.
If you like to work out in your apartment or home using a tool with a low barrier to entry, and the lightest possible weight, this suspension trainer review should prove useful, highlighting all the nuances you should consider before buying one.
| PRODUCT | FEATURES | CAPACITY | SCORE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 
|
The Winner: NOSSK Twin Pro
|
400 lbs | ||
 |
Rapid Rings
|
N/A | ||
 |
TRX Sweat System
|
700 lbs |
Best Suspension Trainer Review
Best of Both Worlds: NOSSK Twin Pro Bodyweight Fitness Strap Trainer
The NOSSK Twin Pro punches well above its weight as our budget pick. This suspension strap operates with an evergreen strategy when it comes to home workout equipment. Simplicity over fluff, minimal moving parts, and an easy setup.
Its best feature is that the two straps are not attached together in one anchor point as is the case with most suspension trainers. You can set up the straps independently from each other, more like a gymnastic ring, and this way allows pushups and dips as well which is not possible with classic suspension straps.
The straps are made from first-grade military webbing that supports up to 400 pounds and is available in several different colors. In terms of the remaining materials, they all feel robust and strong—something you wouldn’t expect in this category when TRX rules the market.
Setting up is quick and easy and doesn’t require you to install any brackets into your wall at home. You can use the anchor points with three methods—either by looping the strap through itself, using the carabiner, or by using the built-in door jam. Connecting the two straps through the D rings with the carabiner allows for throwing over higher bars or tree branches that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach.
The NOSSK Twin Pro workout strap pairs versatility with quality, surprisingly, without having to break the bank, which is a rare breed nowadays. Having two individual straps NOOSK put an end to an old debate about whether gymnastic rings or suspension straps are better. This system is the best of both worlds hence my top choice in this best suspension trainer review.
PROS
- Dual anchor point system, independent straps
- Built-in door jam
- Made from high-grade military materials
- Can use either one of three anchor points
- Suitable to use indoors and outdoors
- Easy to set up
CONS
- None
The Runner-up: Rapid Rings
Rapid Rings is a unique form of equipment that slightly differs from traditional gymnastic rings. The core benefit is its quick set-up and adjustability due to the roll-up and hook system. Numbering on the quality suspension straps is also a great feature, this way you don’t have to eye-measure symmetricity.
The set can be used indoors and outdoors as long as you have a strong support structure such as a pull-up bar.
If you already have your wooden rings, or straps, you can order just the Rogue Rapid attachment exclusively.
A hook is the primary attachment however you can also replace it with a strap should the bar or other structure be too large in diameter. To use the hook, the bar needs to be smaller than 1.3’’. However, it’s easy to come around this issue. If you don’t have a singular support structure at your home, a pair of ceiling-mount brackets for safe anchoring should do the trick. Or wrap an extra strap around the bar or any accessory for that matter and use that to hang the hook indirectly on the bar.
The Rapid Rings offered by Rogue feature utmost quality, and as always, I’m quite biased towards wooden grips and prefer it over any other material when it comes to a natural feel sweatproof surface. If you would like to emphasize upper body training, gymnastic rings are the indisputable king, also in terms of versatility and resistance. Because of this, is a more useful and sturdier option than classic suspension trainers.
PROS
- Fantastic build quality
- The unique number system that makes the workout straps easy to adjust
- Solid yet comfortable wooden handles
- Suitable for all skill levels
- Incredibly secure and easy to set up
CONS
- The hook can only be used on bars no bigger than 1.3’’
Fancy option: The TRX Sweat System
TRX is a well-known brand and the TRX Sweat System is a quality suspension trainer with high-grade materials. This product has several anchors that allow it to be attached to doors, poles, beams, and other supportive structures within your home—don’t tell me you have no poles and beams in your home.
With adjustable straps and a carabiner tested to hold more than 700 pounds, the TRX Sweat System is incredibly safe and durable. The comfortable foam handles will protect your hands and offer a sure grip no matter how long you workout.
As with most suspension straps, the loops below the handle allow your feet to fit in providing safe and comfortable lower body strengthening, such as split squats, one-legged burpees or core exercises like the pike and body saw.
Sweat TRX straps also come with six workout downloads that will significantly help people who are just starting out. The package also includes a workout poster, a door anchor, a suspension anchor, and a mesh carry bag.
As long as you have some kind of structure to support your TRX home setup no excuses are allowed anymore as you’re now able to work out in your living room, the bedroom, garage, at a tree, you name it. This workout strap withstands serious abuse, as a piece of one-stop-shop equipment for a full-body home workout.
The TRX Sweat System was designed with commercial use in mind, which means less wear and tear on key parts, where the strap is subject to the greatest frictions. I’ve seen no-name workout straps hair out in 2 months, TRX is unlike them with its expertise dating back to 2004 in functional suspension training.
PROS
- Designed for indoor and outdoor use
- Can support over 700 pounds
- Durable material
- Two different anchors to use
- Can be packed into a small mesh bag
CONS
- Foam on the handles can wear over time
- Single point anchoring doesn’t allow dips, pushups
Suspension Trainer Buying Guide
Sure you can hang from a street workout pull-up bar and do pull-ups, pushups, even dips. However, a simple bar can’t come close to the exercise variety suspension straps provide. Still, their real value lies in their scalability, adjust to any angle for varying difficulty to leverage your bodyweight.
Many underestimate the sheer value of a suspension strap and end up buying one with questionable quality although this home workout tool could have been one of their best long-term investment had they done a little research.
The following section I outline what you need to consider before buying workout straps and what benefits can be expected.
Advantages & Disadvantages of Suspension Straps
Out of the many factors that made suspension tools infamous in the bodyweight workout genre I’d like to highlight the two most important ones.
Most exercises performed on suspension trainers are so-called closed kinetic chain exercises, which are said to be somewhat of more rehabilitative nature. What’s more, CKC exercises involve multiple joints to move, and this way more mimic basic human function.
The other main benefit of suspension training is core activation. In most of the positions your core acts as a bridge to transfer force between the arms and legs, which is as functional as your trunk can be and has a great carryover to any sports with high athletic needs.
Workout straps have become a popular method for exercising at home predominantly for
the following reasons:
- Cost-effective compared to traditional gym memberships.
- Easy to set up within your own home.
- Space efficient—can be easily stored after your workout.
- Easily modify intensity and adjust to your skill level by fine-tuning angles.
- Potentially burn more calories—suspension trainers bring the best results with whole-body exercises and functional workouts.
- Using your own bodyweight, suspension straps are very joint-friendly.
- Activates more muscle groups and increases functional strength through instability and this way makes up for the low resistance bodyweight training gets a bad rep for.
- Take with you anywhere—weighing around 1 pound on average, suspension straps are easily portable fitting in any suitcase. Wherever you travel this valuable workout tool comes with you.
While suspension trainers certainly have their range of benefits, there are some disadvantages
to think about:
- Whole-body exercises can be challenging for absolute beginners as well as instability. A certain level of body consciousness and core strength, or shoulder stability sure comes in handy.
- The exercise versatility powerhouses suspension trainers are, they are still just one tool out of the many and do not cover the full spectrum of what the human body is capable of such as moving external objects or locomotion skills.
Advantage of Gymnastic Rings over Suspension Trainers
If I had to choose between TRX-like suspension straps and gymnastic rings I would always pick the latter. Rings promote further exercises such as dips, pushups, pull-ups, muscle-ups, and a whole plethora of other gymnastic exercises. Rings, especially ring dips or static holds are the best bodyweight exercises to strengthen the upper body, period. The stabilization needs are brutal.
Also, while you could do almost every TRX exercise with a gymnastic ring the opposite is not true. The main difference that TRX-like workout straps have one point of suspension while rings have two, to be exact they are 19.7 inches apart officially. This approximately shoulder-width distance allows pushup, dips, and pull-ups, exercises that can’t miss from a complete bodyweight workout routine.
So, suspension straps are awesome, but rings are another level.
What to Consider Before Buying a Suspension Strap
Before you jump onto your laptop or run down to your local sports store, take these important
factors into consideration.
Where Will You Be Exercising?
Gyms are readily available, yet we enjoy working out within the comforts of our own home.
You may only have space in your living room or bedroom. A common mistake when planning out a home gym is underestimating the space needed for our workouts.
A good rule of thumb is to spread your arms, with fingers splayed, measure from middle finger to middle finger, and multiply with your height x 1,5. That’s the minimum of how much floor space you need, though that should be enough for most suspension strap exercises. However, this can change depending on where you hang the straps, e.g. how high your anchor point is.
What Will Be Your Support Structure?
If you’re like many others, you may only have a bedroom door as a support structure to hold suspension trainers. In this case, you need a fitness strap with a door anchor. Luckily the best suspension trainer brands already include a door attachment option in their kit, not just the carabiner.
Still, in general, doors are not the best anchor options as they don’t allow the user to hang the straps completely vertical and this way limits your freedom of choice in exercises.
Let’s say you want to put your forearms in the cradle hooks, and perform an inverse body saw where you move your arms away overhead as opposed to the classic one where you push your body backward.
If you faced the door, there would be no space for your head, nor your arms to be pushed forward.
If you lean your feet against the door, the strap will be so far away from vertical, from its attachment point, that even if you adjust the straps to their full length your body angle would rather be at 45 degrees, instead of just barely above the ground.
To take full advantage of your suspension trainer it’s best to buy a wall-mounted pull-up bar and hang it there or a swing hanger bracket mounted to the ceiling. That should give plenty of space for all the exercises.
Take Note of the Materials
Most suspension trainers all utilize similar materials. Pay careful attention to the support points such as the straps, buckles, hooks, and carabiners.
The handle material is equally important. Foam can be more comfortable but some measly ones deteriorate quite quickly. Wood is rather used with gymnastic rings, which by the way would give you the best grip and it is the most durable of all the other common materials used for fitness straps.
A quality rubber handle with non-slip texture is a sure common ground, it grips well, causing the least calluses.
Stay away from cheap hard plastic handles, they are slippy with no moist absorbtion.
What is Your Budget?
Again, if you want the best and on the contrary a dirt cheap option, gymnastic rings can’t be beaten. However, if you insist on the carabiner-like anchor structure and sophisticated handles fortunately you don’t have to rob the bank either.
It really just comes down to how heavy you’re going to rely on your suspension trainer. If the strap is your sole tool to cover the full spectrum of your bodyweight workout, then naturally, it will be better exposed to wear and tear, than if you only used it for a few selected exercises.
Either way, if long-lasting high quality is what you are after, then investing in a quality suspension strap from a well-known brand pays out manifolds.
How to Use a Suspension Trainer
A suspension trainer can be used in a trillion ways depending on your ability. The stronger you
are, the more diverse exercises you can incorporate into your workout. However, know what you are doing. Don’t fall into the trap of chasing numbers, and fancy-looking positions, at the end it’s just a hanging strap with its most useful exercise being the inverted row. Fancy exercises are highly criticized for their questionable carryover to real-life strength and sports.
Start off by focusing on these basic exercises before tackling more advanced ones.
- Inverted rows
- Reverse flyes
- Face pulls
- Tricep press, bicep curls
- Standing rollout
- Prone knee raises
However, as with everything, the sky is the limit. The video below should spark some ideas on the best bodyweight exercises suspension trainers are used for:
Conclusion
In this best suspension trainer review, the 3 products of my choice all excel in providing a diverse bodyweight workout, with minimal time to set up.
The NOSSK Twin Pro, however, stands out as a new kid on the block in the suspension system competition. Don’t let its American-made high-grade material and thought-out design fool you. The idea of the manufacturer was to make NOSSK suspension strap accessible for the general public but without compromise in first-class quality.
Well, with the NOSSK Twin Pro they succeeded so, breaking with the bad habit of a single strap design which has only one anchor point limiting exactly those exercises from which you would expect the greatest benefits: dips, pull-ups, pushups. Having two independent straps completely solves this drawback without having to go bankrupt. This shoots the NOSSK suspension trainer to the top of this review, a product that I can only recommend for all the home workout folks.
The runner-up is Rapid Rings, since, in my opinion, a pair of gymnastic rings are the best suspension trainers, even though it falls in its unique category. Wooden rings coupled with the smart roll-up and hook system, this configuration provides such high value that the only reason for second place is its premium price tag.
So there you have it, 3 of the best suspension trainers you can’t go wrong with. If you’ve had enough of your local gym and planning to workout at home, it would be a fitness sacrilege not to start with this tool.
