Resistance Bands

tmbg1

I was given a set of bands for home strength training. Can bands be an effective way to build some strength? What are some good tips for using bands? Any favorite videos? Thanks!

Retroguy2000

I disagree that up/down with free weights is a big issue. Unless you're seriously into bodybuilding, for most people they can work just fine with free weights for legs, back, arms and shoulders. For chest, you really need a bench. You don't need cables. They offer more options, yes, but they aren't necessary.

I also disagree that bands are as effective. The biggest issue is the stretch under load. If you do a squat or RDL or barbell/db bent over row with free weights, the target muscles are being stretched under load which is ideal. With bands, it's the opposite, e.g. a squat is really a bodyweight squat at the hardest point, and a row is hardest at the contraction then it gets easier during the eccentric.

Another issue with bands is progression. The difficulty changes immensely based on body distance from anchor, body lean, age of band as you said, which all makes it easy to cheat a bit, and harder to know how well you're progressing week to week. With free weights, yeah you can use some English sometimes to be fair, but generally it's obvious what your ROM is.

All that said, I 100% support having bands. As you say, they are much cheaper, they're ideal for travel, and they're also useful for rehab and barbell intensity techniques. And if it's all you have, definitely use them.

Retroguy2000

Bands are much better than nothing, but they're no substitute for free weights or machines with proper progressive overload. It's hard to do much for lower body with bands, and they're also not ideal in that typically their most challenging point is when your muscle is contracted, not when it's stretched.

If you have a door anchor you can do a lot of upper body stuff easily. For lower body you maybe rig up a way to do leg extensions and lying hamstring curls.

When you push to failure on an exercise, if it's taking you 30+ reps to get there, the bands aren't thick enough. You can use two or three at a time, or buy thicker ones.

rmcaballero2910

HASfit has some videos using bands that I have done and enjoyed. Just look them up on YouTube.

I2k4

Fitness media is full of gushing enthusiasm for this or that modality or equipment and furious dismissal of others. Free weights have a near unlmiited range of resistance levels, but are drastically limited to UP/DOWN gravitational direction and their own strength curves - that's why thousands of bucks get spent on benches, racks and claptrap to put bodies into positions where UP/DOWN resistance works. Bands have limitations, but are perfectly good for building moderate level muscle strength and size, without the UP/DOWN or pay-through-the-nose limitations of free weight or machine resistance.

Lifelong with gym machines and dumbbells, I got latex loop bands during the pandemic lockdowns with very good results. You don't specify the type, age or range of bands - important to have the appropriate resistance for personal goals and current abilities, and to know that unlike iron weights the resistance of bands declines with use and simple aging. A little math applied to say three exercises done three times weekly in 3 sets x 12 reps over 52 weeks will tell you how many thousands of stretches are wearing them down. I started with budget bands that began losing resistance within six months and snapped at about two years of regular use. (For safety, stretch only to twice the length of the band segment.) For the same reason the Day 1 rating of bands in "pounds" of full stretch resistance are not helpfui - it's more a trained feel than a measuring of progress.

Because of the learning curve, I recommend a deep dive into online tutorials or formal programming for band set up and technique. I started with and continue to refer to James Grage's Undersun "T2" program and playlists, and (in spite of his constant "go ahead" speech tick) Dave Schmitz "RBT" Band Gym, both with good free Youtube channels. Both of them use simple hand holds and anchoring.

I personally dislike the current marketing of expensive "bar and footplate" peripherals because of how their locked positions restrict on-the-fly adjustments and ignore the serious degradation of bands over months of use - 20 squats with a new band locked into a footplate and bar is nowhere near 20 reps with the same band a year later. But spreading the feet or choking the grip can compensate for that, as Grage or Schmitz teach. I do recommend gloves, j-hook handles and/or tube or "fat" grip handles for latex loop bands.

In sum, bands may or may not be the tool for you, but hard work with them will be as effective in their own way as any other fitness modality will be in some different but not necessarily better way.

abondani

Bands are pretty useful if you're unable to do a bodyweight chin-up without assistance. Some will recommend starting with negatives (where you're in the up position and slowly descend) without assistance, but that will increase DOMS. If you are capable of doing a chin-up with a band around your feet, it's a pretty close approximation to the unassisted movement, and you can progressively move toward smaller bands as you get stronger.

I2k4

I pretty much agree with Retroguy that basic free weight exercises, especially for the young and healthy, are the shortest way to strength and muscle mass, and that starting with bands for comparable versions of the same lifts will eventually bring serious or competitive lifters back to the iron. (Interesting news that Westside Barbell powerhouse will be formally collaborating on a training academy with the X3 band system.)

I'd point out that free weights can have their own ROM "soft spots", leading to variations (and debates) about body positioning and other subtleties, and that bands can similarly be varied within set/rep schemes, layering, isometrics, lengthened partials, etc. If I layer my 2.5" over my 3.5" loop band for a "suitcase" squat it is not "bodyweight" at the bottom, and may be too hard to pull to the top. Having access to a decent gym lets you periodically measure band progress or lack. Sure, there's a fair amount of subjectivity and "feel" in using bands but also in the different ways different people use the same dumbbell, barbell or cable apparatus.

tmbg1

Very insightful responses thank you so much!