Chains or bands?

Phlog said:
Honestly just thought you were telling an in joke!

I train (power lifting) exclusively at home and have done for years, I get my info online. I deadlift over 460lbs, bench over 260lbs so while I'm not necessarily 'strong' in relative company, I'm certainly not weak.
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I've never played football, but did combat sports and am currentlu training a younger brother who's a linebacker.

I've never used bands for legs, but I find they can be used extensively to increase your pullups or bench. I'm guessing you're not a powerlifter so you don't need to wait until you're extremely strong to start using bands or chains. Even if they don't increase your Big 3 numbers too much they will still carry over power and RFD.

One way you can approach Band/ power work is to take one day out of the week to work strictly on band work. Or just have a speed lift at the beginning of each workout.

One rep scheme that is universally accepted is 7 sets of 3 for speed work.
I find band work helps with punching power and for my brother it helps with sprinting and jumping.

Don't sell yourself short. An optimized strength and conditioning can make a world of difference in any sport. Technique is king obviously, but if you have the time and motivation why not give yourself every possible advantage.
 
If you can set up for reverse bands I say bands all day long. Easier to scale (cheaper to buy heavier bands than heavier chains) take up less space, and you can set them at a height where the top end is unassisted so you know exactly how much you're overloading lockout positions. I think bands are more versatile than chains for other things too like banded stretching and strand pulling.
 
Midnighthaute said:
I've never played football, but did combat sports and am currentlu training a younger brother who's a linebacker.

I've never used bands for legs, but I find they can be used extensively to increase your pullups or bench. I'm guessing you're not a powerlifter so you don't need to wait until you're extremely strong to start using bands or chains. Even if they don't increase your Big 3 numbers too much they will still carry over power and RFD.

One way you can approach Band/ power work is to take one day out of the week to work strictly on band work. Or just have a speed lift at the beginning of each workout.

One rep scheme that is universally accepted is 7 sets of 3 for speed work.
I find band work helps with punching power and for my brother it helps with sprinting and jumping.

Don't sell yourself short. An optimized strength and conditioning can make a world of difference in any sport. Technique is king obviously, but if you have the time and motivation why not give yourself every possible advantage.
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liking this because its one of the more moronic things ive heard in weeks
 


heres a video from CWS saying nearly the same thing i said earlier
 
pokerandbeer said:


heres a video from CWS saying nearly the same thing i said earlier
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boom-there-it-is.jpg
 
pokerandbeer said:


heres a video from CWS saying nearly the same thing i said earlier
Click to expand...

I think hes saying its a question of application and concurrent training isn't he? I mean while it's true it can increase stress on the cns, you wouldn't want to do heavy accomodating resistance training in season (concurrent with heavy sport training). But off season or when sport training is lessened, doesn't it make sense that you could train a little harder with bands?

His assertion that banded training doesn't transfer over to athetic explosiveness flies in the face of more than a few studies i seem to remember. Specifically training for explosiveNess benefits from a 10% increase in resistance from the bands (at lockout I think) which to me means a lot of people are training too heavy with bands.

Their application is tricky too. Essentially i think of a banded variation as a new variation of an exercise you could rotate in as needed as it benefits your training. In the app I use to track my training I might have squats, squats with reverse mini bands, squats with reverse super minis, squats with light bands, etc. All listed as separate exercises, the same way I think of back squats and front squats. This simplifies their applocation for me rather than "today's a dynamic day" I think instead of "today's a squat day." And choose my exercises accordingly.

Lastly changing the force curve has been helpful to me on several lifts. While I MIGHT have hammered away at a stuck lift for 8 weeks and could have made progress, swapping out some of the resistance for bands kept me making reps, getting stronger and stayed motivated to keep pushing forward. This piggybacks on thinking it as an exercise variant instead of a paradigm shift.

It's my 2 cents. I'm not all knowing or definitI've or even that strong, but my experience with bands has been overall positive. It's not miraculous, but I dont think they're without merit.

Lastly, is he suggesting sprinting as dynamic effort work? I'd never considered that before.
 
He is just saying that sprints, jumps and throws are the most efficient way for an athlete to build well that explosive power. "Dynamic Effort" as far as with barbells it doesnt actually increase RFD or even make you more explosive. Many coaches have debunked that myth. THat said even dynamic effort isnt useless because it does allow you to get a great amount of volume in in a less stressful manner.

Furthermore I dont see any problem with having bands in your training as a part of a rotation some weeks maybe even in season depending on how the rest of the schedule is. But that said I wouldn't recommend to the OP to go buy chains and bands for something that will have little to any effect on his athletic career when much simpler more economical ways to get more powerful and explosive are there. Squats and deadlifts with straight weight being number 1 on that list.
 
In season work is really about maintenence and staying injury free.
When your body is being hammered every week I imagine it gets harder to make strength gains. I do believe you can increase RFD in season tho with DE work, especially at the high school level.
Bands/chains are very multi purpose however. I don't see them as some big scary apparatus only elite powerlifters can touch lol. For instance they are an easy way to load the pullup and I I'd say they are the single best way to load a pushup.

I've torn my pec in the past and I use bands frequently in my bench work now. It's painful to go all the way down with significant weight so I use a lot of accommodating resistance to bypass that. The lift is lighter at the bottom so it puts less stress on the shoulders and pecs and more on my elbows, which are perfectly healthy. A life saver really.
Also if you are heavier individual you can use bands for assisted chinups.
 
pokerandbeer said:
no^
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Why? I thought he made a couple of good points. Training around pain to keep a full rom is a bad idea? Band assisted pullups are bad? I don't understand.

Also, I've been out of the loop for a while now, so does anyone have a source (or several) that concludes dynamic effort is a bad idea to improve the rate of force production?
 
i will dig up some articles.....its been proven in practice by my coach over hundreds of lifters and other coaches around the country....people find that when they add dynamic effort they get stronger but it isnt actually because of increasing RFD thats nonsense....it could have been frequency or just more volume.....

i have no issue with his whole post if he is injured they are useful and pullups yea sure

the bottom line is you get strong by lifting Heavy there is no way around it hell even on westside lifters often "work up" to a heavy weight on "dynamic effort" day...you get powerful by lifting heavy weights and increasing your max strength....it really is not complicated nor should it be
 
pokerandbeer said:
i will dig up some articles.....its been proven in practice by my coach over hundreds of lifters and other coaches around the country....people find that when they add dynamic effort they get stronger but it isnt actually because of increasing RFD thats nonsense....it could have been frequency or just more volume.....
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I could buy that I guess. And it works in well with my "just another exercise variation" application. Still for speed an power development it seems like heavy lifting builds a solid foundation, but only takes you so far. Even if you do Ballistic training with 30-40% of your max, it is going to be contingent on having your max increase eventually.
 
This is like the olympic lifting belief system in America. THey focus on nothing but power development and no focus on the big lifts at all. The truth is you can only increase power so much. This is the difference between an elite olympic lifter or basketball player etc and the average joe...they are born powerful..the only way an average athlete can keep up is to increase max strength and express their power because of max strength. This doesnt mean to not include explosive exercises but loading up a bar to 65% and flailing around like a spaz is no way to do that.
 
Chains are much cooler and impressive looking.
 
Chains because I like to pretend Im Rampage.
 
Why not get both?

If you can afford to buy all that what's a bit more for the bands and chains?
 
Phlog said:
Which would you suggest I go for?

Adding to bar for bench, Squat, dead and ohp.

Just bought my Christmas present of a new gym, power rack, Olympic weights, trap bar etc etc.

Post is 50% real and 50% brag.
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If you have a cheap source for chains I would definitely go with those if you haven't used either before. Bands are rougher on you from my experience.
 
variety? do a mix of both switching on different days.
 
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