Did my first day of dynamic effort for the bench yesterday. While I concentrated more on bar speed than anything else I still had doubts about band tension. I put one end of the bands on the bar sleeve and tied the other around 2 100lb DBs while the weight of the bar was 160(70%). Anyone know an accurate way of determing tension?
If your talking about the pro short bands If not, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe contact the manufacturer.
Tension doesn't matter, bro. Just do reverse hypers, pray to Louie, and everything will be fine. Westside4LYFE!!!1!
What Cratos said. Or maybe Keosawa talked about determining the right amount of band tension in a video somewhere?
Damn it. Came in here to say "in b4 cratos". I've been using a barbell or DB's hanging from the set up and comparing to the chart posted above. Its usually pretty close.
Personally, I don't do enough work with bands to really worry about knowing what the exact tension is, but I've helped someone else figure out tension using a barbell, like you described above, and it's pretty straightforward. Rather, I was getting at I recall Keosawa talking about how it's the difference between the tension at the top and bottom, and aiming for a constant speed throughout the lift, that's more important. I don't recall exactly, and it's not something I have much experience with, but it makes sense to me that it's the difference in load that would be important. Which is why I said to go see what Keosawa said.
My rogue mini bands are around 30lbs each stretched to 40 or so inches. As far as DE bench work I have a chart somewhere. For a 300 lb max you would want to use 50 to 60% straight weight and around 60 lbs of added tension off the top of my head. Minis should be just fine for you.
1. Do as Legio said to determine band tension. Measure the distance from the top of the barbell to the bottom of the dumbbells you're using at a.) lockout position and b.) bottom position. You can do this without the bands, obviously--just take an empty barbell. You might want to set up high on your bench and hold the bar at each position so that it's close to the rack; that way, you can mark off the height at each location. But yes, figure out the tension both at the top and at the bottom, since you want to know the differential. 2. After you know this, fit your band tension to your strength curve. Dynamic-effort training is a matter of maximal force at sub-maximal weight, so you need resistance that will "accommodate" your rate of force production. I mean, why do we use bands to begin with? It's so that we can continue to produce maximal force without "slowing ourselves down" as we accelerate and enter into a more biomechanically advantaged position. So, you obviously want a band that has a great enough top/bottom differential that it doesn't allow you to accelerate at the top of the movement. The bar speed should be "snappy," but you don't want that snap to come after an obvious slow point in your concentric. Read this: http://drsquat.com/content/knowledge-base/fresh-look-strength Though not what you're addressing, TS, some of the principles here are the same: So, Tosa's exactly right.
Tape measure? Measure the length if the band when stretched at the bottom and top of a lift then consult chart to get estimate tension.
