Many of our athletes use a Nordic trainer (formerly Thorax Trainer), a kind of cross-country ski simulator, extremely suitable especially for winter training, which has proven to be an ideal all round training machine for triathlon and other endurance sports. The Nordic Trainer was originally developed for cross-country runners, but has proven to be extremely effective for triathlons as well.
The training programs are made as fairly short but extremely effective training programs such as Nordic Strong, the company behind the Nordic Trainer has produced, divided into 3 levels (1: beginner, 2: medium and 3: advanced). The Nordic Trainer is available in SATS Rødovre, HITFITNESS and Welcome-Fitness. They can either be done alone, in groups or in combination with other exercise machines such as spinning bikes (most often called Ski & Bike).
The arm movement in the ThoraxTrainer is almost the same as in a swimming stroke, so you use exactly the same muscles as in swimming. With the ThoraxTrainer, you can get greater resistance in your arm movement than you can in the water.
Thereby you can develop greater strength and fitness in the upper body faster with the ThoraxTrainer than you can in the water. At the same time, the ThoraxTrainer's great effect on the core muscles means that you get a better position in the water, because you can keep your legs and feet up to the water's surface. It provides greater traction and more speed.
The ThoraxTrainer is designed so that in every bar lift you have to counter with your legs with the same force as you press with your arms and upper body.
It provides a very effective endurance strength training of the thigh, seat and hamstring muscles, which means that you can pedal harder. At the same time, your core muscles are activated and trained in each stroke, so that you can better withstand the pressure from the leg muscles when you step on the pedals. Thereby you can increase your watt output on the bike significantly in a short time.
The ThoraxTrainer very effectively trains your core stability. It also trains the leg muscles and the muscles under the feet. All in all, you get an improved "bounce" in each running step, because your core absorbs the shock from the ground - you don't "lose" your hip and your foot springs better. It gives increased speed, good running technique over a longer period of time and far less risk of injury.
/tri club denmark I Nygårdsvej 7A, 3rd floor I 2100 Copenhagen Ø. I info@tri-club.dk In CVR: 35187235
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