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Bench Press With Bands
Barbell Bench Press with Resistance Bands Benefits
Using bands to improve your bench press is something that has proven itself to work effectively but it should be added here that band training is an advanced technique that should not be used when starting out for the first time.
There are a number of different ways that bands can be used in training any body part, but the bands need to be correctly applied to the apparatus. The types of bands range from elastic like bull-dog band to the thick bungee-chord band which gets attached.
Without a doubt the biggest advantage of training with bands is the increase in the explosive strength or acceleration that you get when starting a movement. The training of the athlete Adam Nelsen to win Gold at the Olympics is specifically used to increase his explosive strength.
The difference between regular free weights and using bands is constant resistance. When you train a movement through full range your biomechanics goes through various degrees of stress depending on where you are in the movement.
For example it makes perfect sense that the beginning of a lift as you push the weight off your chest in bench press is going to be a lot more resistance on the targeted muscle group that when you reach lockout. What the bands do is make sure that the resistance that is achieved is constant.
The big advantage of training with bands is that the tension can be specifically adjusted to suit your needs and the strength that you have for doing the set. It is strongly advised that you do not train with bands on consecutive days and to make sure that you always get a day's rest.
It is recommended that you do 8 to 10 sets of only 1 to 3 reps each as you will be concentrating on the completion of the movement and you therefore need to reach failure. Squatting and pressing are probably going to give you the best results as they involve the basic "core strength".
Although training with resistance bands has been done for many years for rehabilitation etc., it is only recently that they are been used very effectively to improve power and explosive strength. When used effectively on movements that involve more than one set of joints it has proven itself.
The training with bands has become popular very quickly simply because of the results that are seen. However there are people who believe that the advantage that you are getting in muscle gains is specifically because of the added neural fiber connections that are created when training with bands.
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