I’m always looking for ways
to shake up my workout routine. Whether it’s to keep from falling into a
workout rut or to give the muscles a little shock for the sake of gains, trying
new things in the gym or switching up an old, stale routine is a great idea.
A couple of months ago, I
joined a friend in a workout with a personal trainer at Vida in Washington, DC.
My friend, who is in amazing shape, recommended a workout with Jack, and I take
her recommendations seriously, so she set up a session for the two of us. As a
personal trainer myself, I like dropping in on classes and experiencing other
trainers’ methods and madness. Often it reminds me to switch up my workouts,
and sometimes I get a taste of a new exercise or a new way of doing an old
exercise that will shock my body into more gains. My workout with Jack was one
such experience.
We did an upper body,
chest-focused workout, and as you would expect, bench was our jumping off
point. I won’t tediously take you through our entire workout, but I will sum it
up in two words: bands and burn. Bands, because Jack employed resistance bands
on the bench, which I, even with an adventurous workout spirit, have never
tried. And burn, because that’s what I felt.
After my workout with Jack, I
looked into training with resistance bands, and started to employ them in my
workouts. Before this workout, I had tinkered with variable resistance training
with chains. Chains and bands serve to “level-up” an exercise. And I’m here to
tell you that if you’ve hit a plateau, or you’re looking to switch things up,
or you just want to add difficulty to your workout, then variable resistance
training is one way to go.
First, let me explain
variable resistance training. With chains or bands, you start with the lightest
weight in your movement at the beginning of the concentric phase—that is, with
the chain dangling from the bar (or the bands stretched from bar to anchor
point), as you lower the weight, in the eccentric phase, the links of the chain
rest on the floor (or the band recoils), so that at the start of the concentric
phase, more of the weight is resting on the floor (or the band hasn’t been
stretched, so no load has been added). As you lift the weight, or move it
through the range of the exercise, you move links of the chain from the floor
(or stretch the band), adding more and more resistance as you progress through
the movement, hence the name variable resistance training. With chains, there
is a linear progression of the length of the chain to the load. With bands,
there is a bit of a curve in the length-load progression, which means you’re
getting a little more resistance from the bands at points in the movement.
Resistance bands also have
the added effect of a pull during the eccentric phase—the bands literally pull
the weight down. The pulling or recoil effect of the elastic bands, during the
eccentric phase, increases muscle activity, which has been reported in several
studies. Without diving into the science of loading during the eccentric phase,
all this means is that the eccentric phase is enhanced, which will in turn
enhance the concentric phase and the lift as a whole.
So what does all of this mean
in terms of gains? With both chains and bands, you’re increasing the resistance
toward the end of the range of movement, which means you need more force to
move the weight. In theory, a higher force productions means more strength gains.
More muscle activity, as experienced in the eccentric phase of a banded
exercise, means more strength gains, but also an improvement in stability and
balance.
I used bands daily in my
workouts, as in I did at least one banded exercise a day—bench, squat, shoulder
press, deadlift, kettlebell swings, etc—and after about a month and a half of
training with resistance bands, my squat shot up about 10 pounds and my bench
went up 5 (deadlift stayed the same), and I saw improvements in my clean,
especially in the speed with which I moved the bar.
Bottom line is that variable
resistance training is a great way to switch up your workout, and squeeze some
strength gains out of those bored muscles.
