Topic: Bands?

[Matt Denslinger]

I was talking to a guy and he was talking about bands and how they help build the stretch reflex. He said they could be used occasionally, too frequent and the lifter would burn out.

Is there any merit is using bands for front/back squats?

Anyone have experience with bands?

[Mark Limbaga]

bands and chains could help improve youe bak squat, dead, presses and jerks

[Paul LaDuke]

Bands and Chains are great but you need to know what you are doing before you start.  I use chains on speed squating days with the football team at the HS.  On those days we focus on the speed of the reps using only 50-60% of the 1 RM.

I would start with training with chains before starting with bands.  If used properly, chains are accomodative resistance.  The chain should be a mixture of a heavy-link chain doubled up and a light-link chain used to adjust the length of the heavy chain.  If you set the chains on the bar correctly, 1-2 heavy links will be on the floor at the beginning of the squat and almost all of the heavy- links will be on the floor when the lifter is in the bottom position.  Every body size will need to set the chain up differently.  The nice thing about the chains is that you instinctively will explode out of the bottom portion of the squat in order to get all the way to the top of the movement because the bar gradually gets heavier as the bar moves vertically from the floor.  The chains we have at the HS are 45# per pair.

The bands have an extremely strong effect on the negative part of the squat (not sure if that would really help an Olympic weightlifter as the Oly lifts have very little negative portion of the lift).  I have never used the bands but I think they would be a little like using the old Solo Flex machines.  They are really for advanced lifters only.  They would be a lot cheaper than chains but I am not sure the carry over to the Oly lifts would be as good as the chains.

If you want more information look at http://www.westside-barbell.com