Apologies if I’ve missed this but I wondered if you’ve ever written about HIT training with resistance bands or if you’ve ever posted a specific program?
With current restrictions it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to go to a gym in the next few months but I do have a resistance band set that goes up to 150lb resistance (also has a door anchor so I can do lat exercises) and it seemed like a lot of the techniques you talk about might apply well here.
Thanks in advance!
I’ve not worked seriously with resistance bands. But several people on the forum previously had some band experience. Maybe they can share their concepts?
I believe that the best practice will soon support the need to have resistance applied by a weight (gravitational force) for reasons that are yet not properly defined. Several posts have mentioned this in past forums. IMO the muscles require a constant nonvolitional force (i.e. gravity) which I refer to as backloading (which may be the wrong attribute until Dr. Darden’s book arrives). The evidence WILL show gains will quickly stagnate under non-gravitized resistance loading which is ALSO due to severe outroading and shifting.
PS: which is precisely why the 303030 and Max Pyramid protocols are so complete.
Have to disagree, planet_healh:
The latest science around muscle building appears to be converging on mechnotransduction as the stimulation for hypertrophy and strength adaptations: put muscle under tension, force it to work hard, that triggers a hormonal signaling cascade that produces gains. I have never seen any evidence that the tension has to come from gravity based resistance.
Jones invented a whole bunch of machines that applied variable, rather than constant resistance, and they seemed to work OK.
Many training methods employ discontinuous application of resistance: just think about deadlifts, dead stop presses off of pins, box squats. All allow the muscle to unload between reps, and those methods of training clearly work.
I’ll point out that Dr Darden indicated that he has a Bowflex and uses it daily. This, despite the fact that it has no weight stack. It only provides elastic resistance, yet he finds value in it.
Anecdotally, I’ve heard stories of experienced trainees making additional gains by using volitional contraction against motorized resistance.
Many roads lead to Rome, pick the route you enjoy…