Strand-pulling (Chest Expanders; Resistance Bands / Cables)

I don't think there's anything wrong with pulling against band resistance as an assistance or prehab type exercise, the problem is when fanatics claim that it's all you ever need to do for strength training. You still need to do full body compound lifts to make your whole body strong.

Pulling bands is also extremely boring, but that's just my opinion.
 
Good stuff. This stuff is essential IMO for long term health of the shoulder. Because it works on the scapular movement. Don't go too heavy with it. And try not to use deltoid and trapezius during the movements. The goal should be to train these smaller muscles in and around the scapula that move the scapula. That is where you want to feel it. If you don't, lighten it up.
 
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I bet that 60 year old is one strong dude. Even from just trying to train these smaller muscles with more obscure movements. Barbell lifting will hit the large prime movers the most. Some of this strand or band pulling is hitting the smaller muscles. This can fill in the voids left from barbell training. And it's a smart thing for any lifter to do. It's a great tool to maintain shoulder health. That will keep the lifter lifting longer IMO.
 
YukisHeart said:
I would tend to agree; I'm not using band work to replace any of my "proper" strength-training sessions with weights. Just doing a supplementary evening routine; in the same way I try to start the day with a short session of bodyweight exercises and kettlebell swings.

That said, it does seem that (in theory) strand-pulling can hit the muscles in a way free weights can't.

For example, when you curl a dumbbell or press a barbell, it gets easier the closer you are to the top of the lift/lockout, due to leverage.

With bands/cables, you experience the opposite effect: exercises can become more difficult towards the the end of the movement, because the elastic resistance is increased.

You couldn't really do without the free weights, IMO, but couldn't it be argued that you need some sort of band-work to get that "whole body" strength you're talking about, through the full range of motion?

Also, if you're using straight tubing like Crivello, as opposed to the more classic expanders with handles and everything, you're working your grip pretty well, and in a different way than you do with a thickbar or Fat Gripz.
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If making the lockout phase of the lift harder is what you're going for, you can always attach bands to the barbell when doing squats, deadlifts, bench. This is very common for powerlifters to do in their training.
 
I've read that strand pulling was/is very popular among russian wrestlers. Karelin was known to use it a lot.

bandex.jpg


Personally I like the feeling strand pulling gives you. It's different; I feel more energized and pumped up than I do after weights, where I mostly just feel spent.
 
This is a quality thread, thanks OP.

I love band work, mostly just for my shoulders right now but it makes them feel awesome.
 
Jamie Lewis posted recently an article about strand-pulling in his Faddism series. He likened it to drawing a bow string, which will strengthen your shoulders and arms very well if the bow has a decent pull.

So we now how the mongols conquered and pillaged their way to the largest empire of mankind.


Ridiculously jacked delts.
 
Yeah I didnt read all the troll babble bullshit in this thread but Reg Park built his physique on compound lifts using a barbell.
 
They are one tool in the tool box. It's not even the hammer or the screwdriver. It's that stupid blue chalk line thinger. They have their use, but probably don't require this kind of attention.
 
I don't always use bands, but when I do, it looks like this:

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Hm, I can imagine these might help fix my weak mid/lower traps and rhomboids, or at least help with their activation. Thanks for reminding OP.
 
Very great article by Jamie Lewis there. Lots of fun to read. I'm always amazed when we put the physical capacity of historical figures in context to the average person today. We really are pathetic compared to some of the specimens back then...
 
My entire training split consists of only bodyweight movements and resistance bands/strand pulling.

I started due to a traumatic spinal injury, but over time I realized that I was stronger, more mobile and that my joints felt better than with heavy weights. Have stayed with it since.

The bands that I use range from 20-300lbs.
 
the conditioning book from the sandow-lewis collection is bad ass
Its almost all about band stretching
They call their system "dynamic tension"

Its geared toward catch wrestling
 
I'm looking for material to read about chest expanders/strand pulling. I got one last year from Amazon and it's been an amazing tool for a quick office workout thanks to Fatman's Cable Guide. So much so that I got the next difficulty level a couple of months ago. The problem is many exercises are described but not shown and there aren't many workouts. Archer pulls done as described in Fatman's guide are killers.

The Sandow website is no longer working. Maybe a kind sherbro got a digital copy of old material to share? If anyone wants Fatman's guide pm me.
 
YukisHeart said:
Continued:

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It's likely that most of you are still thinking to yourselves, "that's a lovely history of something about which I give exactly zero fucks and will use on the seventh of never." I can understand that sort of skepticism, because when I began writing this, I thought the same thing. Then I stopped and realized that I've used band pushdowns religiously over the last couple of years, regularly use band curls and overhead presses at home as a volume supplement to my program (usually while watching Crank, Crank 2, or The Raid: Redemption), and love the tits off crazybell bench presses. Arm wrestlers routinely employ band work to build tendon and ligament strength for competition, mixed martial artists like Sean Sherk use them to increase punching power and the strength of their shots, and chest expanders have even been used by strongmen to prove their strength. Thomas Inch, for instance, had a special chest expander created for use in strength exhibitions- he'd pull a 40 strand chest expander after six people from the audience had tested it, and while hanging a 56 lb. kettlebell from each pinky finger (Gentle).

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If this dude said it works, it probably fucking does.​

Perhaps the greatest endorsement strand pulling could get, however, is that of Arnold Schwarzennegger's idol, Reg Park. Park penned an entire treatise on the value of strand pulling, which was being called "cable training" at the time, and which Park considered nearly invaluable for bringing "your biceps, deltoids, trapezius, pectorials and latissimus into the size and shape that you want them to be"(Park). According to Park, cables were part of the golden trifecta of training implements, which along with dumbbells and barbells would produce the "finest and strongest physique that a bodybuilder can wish for", citing six early-to-mid-20th Century lifters as proof of this unassailable fact. Park's depictions of the exercises are only marginally better than Alabama's ghetto hood rat artist's depiction of a leprechaun that allegedly plagued the "fine people" of Mobile's shittiest ghettos for a month, but shed some light on those exercises Park valued most and why. What follows is a mere sampling of the over 30 exercises one can do for upper body, but are those which Park found most valuable for building the idea physique.

  • Front Band Pull-aparts- great for strengthening the upper back and traps, in addition to giving one's physique a wider appearance.
  • Overhead Band Pull-aparts - strengthen the lats and help one's v-taper.
  • Overhead to Front Pull-aparts- pulling the bands apart overhead until the bands were positioned in front of the lifter's chest work both the lats, rear delts, and rhomboids.
  • Front Band Pull-aparts - Same as the overhead movement, but with your arms extended to the front, parallel to the ground.
  • Behind-the-back Band Push-aparts- With the bands behind your back, start with your hands at your shoulders and push straight out, with your hands parallel to the floor for back and shoulder development.
  • Unilateral Tricep Extensions- Your typical french press/single arm overhead tricep extension. Hold one end of the band with your arm straight at your waist, and then extend your other hand straight overhead in a typical tricep extension.
  • Unilateral Overhead Press- With one arm held straight by your side and hand at your waist, press the other arm out overhead from the shoulder for a "broad as a barn appearance."
  • Archer's Draw- This movement exactly replicated the motion of drawing a bow, and thus is great for building the shoulders, traps, lats, and biceps on the pulling arm and the tricep and shoulder on the extended arm.
  • Lateral Raise- This should be pretty self-explanatory. If you can't figure out how to do a lateral raise with a band, you might want to consider suicide as your best option.
  • Bicep Curl- Holding one end of the band underfoot, bust out some curls for the girls.
  • Reverse Curl- Same deal, but with your grip flipped for forearm and brachialis work.
  • Front Cable Row- Interestingly, one would think that this movement would be for the back, but it's actually to hit the tricep on your extended arm. Holding your left arm parallel to the ground and fully extended in front of you, pull the other end of the band as far back as possible with your right arm.

Still unconvinced? Allow me to give you a few more reasons why strand/band pulling is worth incorporating into your training. First, it's possible to do either straight strength work or muscular endurance work with bands, and either can lead to hypertrophy when combined with enough meat. Though we usually think of it in terms of its utility for rehab and physical therapy work, it's actually pretty useful in general strength training, if for no other reason than it promotes joint health and strengthens and thickens your ligaments and tendons, but the altered force curve of bands also provides a completely different feel to the weights. Furthermore, the fact that you're not fighting gravity means you have to use far more stabilizers to control the weight (as bands can pull in a variety of directions at once), and you have far more options in terms of angles of resistance, which means you can work weak points and completely ignored angles of resistance that could mean the difference between a PR and a plateau, or an injury and serious strength. Sticking points change and disappear when using bands, and you can drastically increase your force production with the inclusion of band tension to any movement.

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All that shit, while great, ignores probably the best feature of bands- they're completely portable. When traveling, nothing can beat bands, as they're lightweight, compact, and you can use them while sitting on the shitter on an airplane if you really wanted. Combine that portability and ease of access with the fact that you can use bands to do just about anything, including squats, and you've got a pretty strong reasoning for never missing a workout, because the fact that you can't drag your ass to the gym while it's open doesn't mean you can't bust out some bands and get your curls on while watching late night TV for fifteen minutes before bed. Basically, bands are an anti-excuse for skipping workouts, and a pretty fucking good reason why we should all be far more ripped than we are.

There has got to be a reason why bands have remained in the lifting zeitgeist since the dawn of resistance training, and the reason I just outlined probably don't do bands/strands/chest expanders justice. If you think you're too good, too strong, or too advanced for bands, you're a fucking idiot, and if you think you're too much of a novice to handle training with overgrown rubber bands, you should just grab a tack hammer and smash yourself in your stupid, craplousy face with it. There is literally NO reason why you should avoid bands, and dozens of reason why you might as well pick some up and keep them in your gym bag for that rainy/snowy day you just can't muster up the willpower to hit the gym but know there's going to be a Rocky marathon on USA that day.

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Did I mention Reg Park probably looked better at 60 than you do now? Yeah, get your ass some bands.​

Go get some bands, a bullworker, a Bowflex, or something strand pulling related and make that shit work, or I'll send Reg Park's ghost to your house to fuck your girlfriend because you're a dickless bitch.

Sources:

Anderson, Gordon. Tromp Von Diggeln. Maxalding. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.maxalding.co.uk/Tromp/tromp-biog.htm

Chapman, David. Sandow the Magnificent. Champaign: UI Press, 1994.

De Laspee, Henry. Calisthenics; or the elements of bodily culture. Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science. Vol. XXIII. Feb and May 1857. Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1857.

Gentle, David. Thomas Inch a Pioneer in the Muscle Game. David Gentle. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.davidgentle.com/articles/legends/inch.htm

Karpowicz, Adam and Stephen Selby. Scythian bow from Xinjiang. 2010. Web. 7 Feb 2014. http://www.atarn.org/chinese/Yanghai/Scythian_bow_ATARN.pdf

Kumar, Vinya. Monohar Aich : Mr. Universe 1952. Sandowplus. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/India/Monohar/meeting/meeting.htm

Oestmoen, Per Inge. The Mongolian Bow. Cold Siberia. 27 Dec 2002. Web. 7 Feb 2014. http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm

Park, Reg. The Reg Park system of cable training. Sandowplus. Web. 6 Feb 2014. http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Park/Cable/park-cable.htm

Todd, Jan. Strength is health: George Barker Windship and the first American weight training boom. Iron Game History. Sep 1993. Web. 29 Jan 2014. https://www.academia.edu/3009405/St...p_and_the_First_American_Weight_Training_Boom
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Fuck that authors racism re the Irish.
 
Have any of you ever used or have a Bullworker? I like the idea of having something for compression for isometrics where you can measure the output, not so much for pulling; I have various looped strength bands for that. I know you can buy a knock off Bullworker (Iso 7) for a fraction of the price (20-30 bucks) and it gives you up to 90 pounds worth of resistance pushing back on you. The new Bullworker gives up to something like 130 pounds max with their toughest coil, plus there are options of lesser coils/springs for various strength levels.
 
I just ordered the robert baraban chest expander. Thats the real deal. You can check it out at shop.handgripper.net gonna use it for basically the reverse pec deck movement to build the rear delts at home. I overhead press alot so this will supplement it pretty good. Gonna try some other exercises with it too for triceps etc. Alex Leonidas has a good video on youtube on chest expanders
 
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