Resisting Bands...
Another ex-client and long-time friend’s question, which came right on the heels of my last post on the topic of exercise, is spurring this post, this one on the topic of resistance bands… Given how more and more people are looking for ways to exercise independently of their government granting them access to gyms, I felt it would prove valuable, once again, to share my thoughts. So here we go with consecutive musings on the always “confusing” topic of exercise…
Friend: Hmm, interesting collection of quoted studies, thoughts? […] Would you say, all in all, that this is a useful tool, or not so much?
Me: All in all, the tool is just a tool, and only as good as the practitioner... For instance, you can do wonderful things with just your body alone, and even with NO movement (this is so important to point out: most people could get a better workout than they ever imagined by simply using, believe it or not... a wall and a door frame, and maybe a couple of nylon straps).
Other than that, this one article featured quite a bit of the usual misunderstanding, myths and half-truths.
Articles of that nature only serve to confuse people further, and shouldn't be written by people who don't know what they are talking about, and I would even go so far as to say that they are a disservice to humanity...
And no, before I go any further, that's not to say I am claiming bands are inferior, or superior (I have had bands in my home gym for over two decades, but you have to understand how to use them and why; just like everything else), and the same with "free weights", but there’s so much confusion abounding already in this industry, it sucks to see people just add on more layers of the same. And from a PhD, no less :/
Let’s start with the obvious. The author makes a claim for resistance bands offering “more planes of movement”, and therefore commits his first mistake. All one has to do, given what the author himself points out about the direction of gravity being a constant (“vertical”), is for one to change their body’s angle relative to said gravity. This can be accomplished via different means, with the most obvious one being benches (or even the floor): simply lying supine, or prone, or even sideways (and at various angles using an adjustable bench) changes one’s relation to gravity, allowing one, in effect, to create a "horizontal" plane (or almost any desirable plane) with free weights. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out! Given this, with just a little bit of knowledge about muscle function, you can change your position to emphasize almost any muscle using any plain old dumbbell…
Same with “constant tension”. Here, the author uses the biceps curl to point out that at the top of a free dumbbell curl, “the tension has been removed” while in fact, I teach people all the time how to do a dumbbell curl without losing tension at the top OR the bottom (funny enough, the author doesn't mention the bottom, i.e. how bands will generally offer very little to no tension at the bottom of the curl. And that’s not mentioning the fact that there are ample studies showing that “appropriate early phase loading”, i.e. proper tension at the beginning of a movement, is arguably more important…).
And that argument holds for linear variable resistance as well. Whether it’s with bands or free weights, the resistance is ALWAYS variable (because the relationship of the limbs—in essence, the levers—keep changing relative to the forces, whether it’s provided by bands, gravity, cables, etc.). That is why in ALL pulling movements (for example a row), the bands usually offer too little to no resistance at the beginning (let me be clear though that, as with free weights, one can also change this with body positioning), and too much at the top (where the body, again in the row, is also at its weakest. And I insist on using the word "body", vs "muscles", because although any muscle is also inherently reaching one of its weakest point at the top of a contraction, there are also many biomechanical factors that affect how weak—or less mechanically efficient/advantaged—the body becomes at the top of, say, a compound pulling exercise like a row... That's why people will usually "cheat" to finish a row, and not just with free weights, cables or badly designed machines, but with bands too! So I’m not sure why the author would claim that people don't cheat with bands. They do, and it's often the only way through the various sticking points (just as with a badly designed machine!), and with old fraying bands with high-velocity movements, the results can sometimes end up being quite catastrophic.
Given this, it should be obvious that the strength curve does not match the resistance curve in compound pulling movements, and why having the highest resistance at the top of pulling movements makes very little sense… And yet, that's exactly what we get with bands).
Finally, our author commits the CLASSIC mistake: that the resistance always gets progressively harder with bands. That's patently false, and easily demonstrable. I'm sure you’ve done band pullaparts, which target your upper/middle back and rear delts. Well, how easy is the exercise at the very end, when both your arms reach the coronal plane, relative to say, just a few inches before you reach that ROM? Much easier, right? The same, say, with an external rotator exercise, with you arm to your side. At the end-point (assuming one has that range available), there is relatively little resistance in both these exercises, because the direction of resistance becomes parallel to the main muscles being recruited. It matters little that the tension in the band has increased and has reached its peak (just like it doesn't matter how much weight you're actually holding at the very top of a squat or bench press; here the load is essentially "sitting" on top of your joints which means the operating lever is neutral—vs. active) if, at the end of a given exercise, the force (which is a product of the joint angles, length of the operating lever, PLUS band tension) on the targeted musculature is so low as to be negligible. Resistance CANNOT, by that very definition, be getting progressively harder, and that’s because, as I wrote, the forces the musculature is being subjected to isn’t the product of band tension alone. Big fail once again.
The author does redeem himself a little in the next-to-last section, pointing out that combining free weights with bands “can” offer superior results. But again, that depends on many elements, and the one element that matters most is the exercise being performed. In the study he quotes, the results are specifically tied to the bench press (in beginner lifters, which is a whole other issue in and of itself, but I won’t get into this here), and it just so happens that compound pushing movements are some of the better movements where bands work quite well. In movements of this nature (bench press and squat being the two prime example), due to the biomechanics of the operating levers and of the musculature (which, unlike with compound pulling movement, increase in mechanical efficiency when nearing the top of the movement), bands make perfect sense, as the lifter’s strength curve matches the resistance curve of the exercise much better.
Alas, in the last section, he loses all credibility. He alludes to “functional” strength (does that mean there is such a thing as “non-functional” strength, I wonder?!?), injury prevention (not sure why bands would do that better, and I guess we won’t find out unless he writes another article), greater gains in muscular power and explosiveness (really?!!?!!) and “decreased body fat” (out of left field a little?).
You know the old adage: if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. I understand the desire to “find” that secret method or program or implement, but ultimately, it pays to remember that the only real secret is that consistency is king. Consistently doing the things you can sustainably push yourself to do, over and over and over—that is daily or quasi-daily, over decades—is the only true “industry secret”…