Did I Get the Wrong Bands?

Training Powerlifting
21

[quote]dankid wrote:

[/quote]

No, you eat a dick.

Yeah, maybe all the more reason to fuck up your joints? Bands are real easy to overdo, and at your strength level you have little margin of error. I hope you don’t get severe elbow tendonitis like I’ve seen other weak ass benchers who jump into bands.

Chains are a much better option if you insist on using methods you aren’t ready for and don’t need. On the same note if you MUST use bands, try a reverse band setup, especially if you’re not using a bench shirt, which I’m assuming you’re not since your bench is so low.

The band tension for 100-200 pound benchers is for WOMEN.

Gay.

22

I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!!!

23

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/advanced_system_for_beginners.htm

Granted, I know it says I should be starting with chains, but im not about to bring 10ft of chain into the commercial gym with me. When I work out with my friend at his home gym, i’ll likely use chains, and when I work out in the commercial gym it will be bands.

And I know bands can be very taxing, so i’ll start by following and every other week usage of them.

24

[quote]dankid wrote:
Thanks apwsearch and publickstews, those options give me more ways to use what ive got right now.

Im not sure if I understand what you were suggesting apwsearch, but what I was thinking might work, is this:

Put one band per side, single looped. The other end will go down and underneath the bench to the opposite side to a heavy dumbell. Then I can adjust the distance of these db’s to make sure there is some tension at the bottom of the lift.

Otherwise waht publickstews showed in that video looks good, but its kinda hard to see the setup… I’ll figure it out.

And the basic reason im trying to incorporate bands is this:

I am pretty strong when it comes to speed work, and if I use something around 60% like westside suggests, I am still experiencing deceleration toward the top. And my triceps (or the top couple of inches) are one of my weak areas in the lift, and I want to strengthen this weakness.[/quote]

If your max bench is 245 and you are a male of normal bodyweight, then you aren’t strong-no matter how you slice it. Sorry. The same goes for “weak areas”…all of you is a weak area.

You don’t need to focus on driving up your floor press, dumbell press, and tricep extension numbers…you need to focus on driving up your bench press.

Like Stews said, you don’t need fancy shit, you need basics. Trust me, I’ve been down that same road and after a while, you will look back and realize how overcomplicated you were making things.

25

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
dankid wrote:
Thanks apwsearch and publickstews, those options give me more ways to use what ive got right now.

Im not sure if I understand what you were suggesting apwsearch, but what I was thinking might work, is this:

Put one band per side, single looped. The other end will go down and underneath the bench to the opposite side to a heavy dumbell. Then I can adjust the distance of these db’s to make sure there is some tension at the bottom of the lift.

Otherwise waht publickstews showed in that video looks good, but its kinda hard to see the setup… I’ll figure it out.

And the basic reason im trying to incorporate bands is this:

I am pretty strong when it comes to speed work, and if I use something around 60% like westside suggests, I am still experiencing deceleration toward the top. And my triceps (or the top couple of inches) are one of my weak areas in the lift, and I want to strengthen this weakness.

If your max bench is 245 and you are a male of normal bodyweight, then you aren’t strong-no matter how you slice it. Sorry. The same goes for “weak areas”…all of you is a weak area.

You don’t need to focus on driving up your floor press, dumbell press, and tricep extension numbers…you need to focus on driving up your bench press.

Like Stews said, you don’t need fancy shit, you need basics. Trust me, I’ve been down that same road and after a while, you will look back and realize how overcomplicated you were making things.[/quote]

+1

26

Ya know, I took a bike ride with my kid and realized you would be better off setting those bands up for reverse band press, if you are looking to bring up top end. That way you will feel heavier straight weight and IMO, emphasize accelerating off your chest to lockout.

It will also help you to learn to stay tight off your chest and use your lats to lower the weight.

27

more db curls will help the bench of course and crunches…LOL…just lift heavy as u can and eat good foods.

28

Uhm. I recently helped a friend get to a 225x5 at 175# BW, in 8 months. Know what he did? Starting strength for 4 months, two waves of 5/3/1 (sucked for him), madcow’s linear 5x5 for 6 weeks. Oh, he also dropped 50 lbs of weight.

Just. Fucking. Bench.

29

[quote]goochadamg wrote:
Uhm. I recently helped a friend get to a 225x5 at 175# BW, in 8 months. Know what he did? Starting strength for 4 months, two waves of 5/3/1 (sucked for him), madcow’s linear 5x5 for 6 weeks. Oh, he also dropped 50 lbs of weight.

Just. Fucking. Bench.

[/quote]

Yeah funny how people ever managed to get strong before Louie Simmons and Jumpstretch, Inc…

30

straight weight will take you a long way dankid. just keep chugging away, don’t worry about the fancy shit.

31

Keep it simple with straight weight, I have always felt that bands and other more advanced strength training techniques should be reserved for advanced lifters. I’ve gone so far with my strength training for years with just doing the basics.

I’m sure other people here will probably disagree with me on this one, but I feel that newer lifters should rarely even use singles in their training. Now that I have said that, you seem to be hell bent on using your bands, I would sugggest using them even less than once a week, I think once a month would be plenty.

32

[quote]matsm21 wrote:
straight weight will take you a long way dankid. just keep chugging away, don’t worry about the fancy shit.[/quote]

Read my earlier post. Dankid is dankid. And dankid is a cocky moron.

33

You guys are all funny. Im set on using bands. It may be sparingly, but I at least want to try it out and see if they work. Im still benching twice a week, and training heavy, but I feel that bands may have a place in my plan.

My question was the approximate tension on the bands and whether or not I got the wrong ones. I wasn’t looking for peoples criticisms or commentary.

I will try the bands for DE bench with one of the alternative setups above. If this doesn’t work, then i’ll have to switch from DE bench, to doing repetition work, because at the moment DE bench isn’t working with straight weight.

34

Ideally one should use about 40% of 1rm for bar weight and 40% of contrast weight whether it be chains or bands. That puts your 1rm of 245 @ 98#. The monster mini’s doubled give you around 135 ish, so yes you got the “wrong bands” for your current level.

Play with them and get it out of your system. It’s a great tool but not the be all end all and I think you know that already. Probably something that would benefit you more than D.E bench is maybe doing dumbbell presses with a band behind your back for contrast weight. Push ups with the band behind you back etc for accessory movements.

The intent of the bands is to teach speed off the chest for shirted benchers and to teach to push all the way till lock out. Since you don’t use gear you don’t need to concern yourself with this per se. I see some value with them though for RAW benchers in that it teaches you to fire all your muscles at the same time during the press. This hopefully will allow you to sail through any transitional phases of the press (ie the typical 2-3" off the chest and the last few inches at the top).

I would suggest that you do paused illegal wide benches for a few weeks. Really hammer your upper back and lats and work on getting your tri’s stronger. Good luck man…

35

One thing about using bands when benching is that you really have to learn to keep your body tight while you’re benching, you especially need to make sure you are using leg drive too. If you don’t those band will really be a bitch to use and you will be all over the place while you’re benching

And from where your strength looks like, you won’t need much more weight on that bar when you have the monster minis on

36

[quote]dankid wrote:
at the moment DE bench isn’t working with straight weight. [/quote]

So adding bands is going to somehow change that?

37

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
dankid wrote:
at the moment DE bench isn’t working with straight weight.

So adding bands is going to somehow change that?[/quote]

This is what I don’t get. In another thread, he says his squat gained liked 70 pounds by following Dan John’s 40 day thing – which meant he was squatting like every day. Nothing special, nothing fancy, just squatting. I don’t understand why he doesn’t think this will work for his bench.

38

[quote]malonetd wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
dankid wrote:
at the moment DE bench isn’t working with straight weight.

So adding bands is going to somehow change that?

This is what I don’t get. In another thread, he says his squat gained liked 70 pounds by following Dan John’s 40 day thing – which meant he was squatting like every day. Nothing special, nothing fancy, just squatting. I don’t understand why he doesn’t think this will work for his bench.[/quote]

Yeah. I guess my bigger question is how is he measuring progress on DE day?

It’s starting to sound very amateurish.

I’m losing interest rapidly.

39

[quote]apwsearch wrote:
malonetd wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
dankid wrote:
at the moment DE bench isn’t working with straight weight.

So adding bands is going to somehow change that?

This is what I don’t get. In another thread, he says his squat gained liked 70 pounds by following Dan John’s 40 day thing – which meant he was squatting like every day. Nothing special, nothing fancy, just squatting. I don’t understand why he doesn’t think this will work for his bench.

Yeah. I guess my bigger question is how is he measuring progress on DE day?

It’s starting to sound very amateurish.

I’m losing interest rapidly.[/quote]

I used the bands today single looped and they worked really nicely. The reason straight weight wasn’t working for me, was that there was actually too much speed and I either had to not bench with maximum force or my back would come off the bench… It wasn’t from bad form, it was that the weight was too light. It could be that I have enough speed and my max is so low that 60% of my max just moves too fast. So my alternative was to skip DE, but i wanted to try it with bands first. I liked it, I was able to bench with a lot of speed with smooth form and will probably alternate DE with bands and RE straight weight every other week.

My workout today was 8x5 on speed bench and then I built up to a 5rm on floor press. Then I just did various accessory movements for 3x10 (Chest supported row, plate raise, lat pulldown, and band pull-apart)

As for why I think I dont need to just bench more often like the Dan John program. Well, theres a few reasons. First off, its pretty boring just doing 2x5 and not really pushing hard. Sure, its a great way to learn technique and form and get familiar with lifs, but you are going to experience diminishing returns with this workout pretty quickly. Also, that program would be pretty lousy IMO for building muscle and work capacity. Lastly, I just find that the westside template is most user friendly for me, and allows me to push just hard enough without jacking myself up. I get one day where I can max out with heavy weights, an another where I can still get stronger, but with lighter weights. And then supplementary movements that aren’t full ROM still help me get a lot stronger, but with less stress on my joints. And lastly, some isolation movements like tricep extensions might not be as beneficial as straight benching or floor press, but they still add strength and needed muscle mass. If you can just train bench hard and heavy multiple times per week, thats great for you, but for me, so far I have been getting more consistant gains, and feeling a lot better since beginning to train with the conjugate method. I dont think its necessarily more advanced, its just another way to reach the same goal.

40

Yes, you have added 20 lbs to your bench doing what you’ve been doing, but that doesn’t say much since your previous max was 225.

You can delude yourself into thinking that complicated techniques are necessary or even beneficial for a trainee who benches only slightly more than his bodyweight all you want, but intellectual masturbation isn’t going to make you any bigger or stronger.