Bands
Resistance, exercise and strength bands have been around for a while and are a great way
to get a good toning workout wherever you are at. Today’s bands have become more
innovative and thicker allowing for more variations in your workout, but there is another
way to use them for more intermediate and advanced lifters to get an extremely intense
workout. Stealing an idea from my Bowflex, using strength bands hooked on your barbell
can dramatically increase the intensity of the workload. The whole idea behind the power
rods on a Bowflex that I fell in love with was how the intensity increased through the
entire rep especially at peak contraction. Using free weights you rest at the peak
contraction and lose an important part of the rep by not getting full resistance
throughout the contraction. So, what I like to do is take a band and hook it on the end
of the bar. If it has the handles just place those over the ends. If the bands do not
have handles you can tie them together then place them around the bar. The lifter can
stand on the other end with your feet or use another barbell or dumbbell on the ground
to keep it in fixed position. Alternately if you are using any kind of flat, incline
or preacher bench the band can be affixed under it for even greater stability. Getting
more creative it is easy to hook them to a weight stack on a cable machine for the same
effect.
Exercises
Chest-barbell press, cable flies (hook to weight stack)
Back-Pull-ups (hook around feet then attach to dumbbell or bench on floor),
Pull-downs (hook to weight stack), barbell rows (attach to bar)
Shoulders-barbell press, high pulls, front raises (attach to bar)
Biceps-barbell curls (normal or reverse-attach to bar), Cable curls (attach to stack)
Triceps-close-grip press, skull crushers (attach to bar), pushdowns, rope overhead
(attach to stack), Dips-(attach to feet)
Quads/Hams-Squats/Deadlifts-(attach to bar), leg press, ext/curls-attach to machine or
stack
Abs-crunches-hook underarms around chest to something low and behind or on machine or
stack. Leg or knee pulls-hook to feet then bench or vertical pole.
Advantages