Just Rubber...

This holiday season has been very busy, as usual. But luckily I only missed one workout...which was on Christmas Day. And of course you know I made up for it this morning. Today we had a "Chest and Back" day, which is normally our Tuesday workout. We incorporated the use of the strength bands on the barbell bench press. These aren't your average elastic tubing that barely give 15lbs of resistance. These are the heavy duty, reinforced bands that produces about 90lbs of resistance. Adding these to each side of the barbell as one performs a bench press can make even a 100 lbs feel very heavy. It's not the same type of "heaviness" that you get from regular plates which are providing the exact amount of resistance throughout range of motion. These bands cause a variable amount of loading that results in each rep to feeling different. The "middle" part of the motion is when the resistance starts to kick in. This forces one to explode through the rep or else the "load" would make it impossible to finish/lock out. Needless to say, this provides an instant pump to the muscle because of the added amount of force needed, and in maximizing strength gains.