Ive read alot of stuff on here talking about the usefullness of bands, chains and forms of accommodating resistance.
I was kind of wondering though, how much is it going to help you if you arent really that strong in the first place ?
What kind of base of strength (relative to your bw) should you realisticly have in order to actually get a good training stimulus from bands/chains? Does it matter ?
I was looking at the dynamic effort type stuff as being similar to speed/jump training, where if you dont have a good base of strength you arent really going to benefit from certain types of training .
What are your numbers? How long have you been training? How much do you weight? etc,etc
There are many very strong people that have never used bands/chains in their whole powerlifting career. It’s not necessary for everyone but obviously it has helped many people increase their lifts.
I personally think you can still get a lot out of simpler methods of training. Madcow, 5/3/1, texas method, etc would seem right up your alley. But if you really think it’ll help use it as some sort of assistance.
When training with straight weights starts to stall, consider adding in accommodating resistance. Bands & chains are useful but if you’re still making gains with straight weight, then keep at it.
I have ‘worked out’ consistently for 4 years. Basically did alot of crossfit/conditioning type stuff and didnt try to increase my strength too much.
I did ALOT of long distance running in highschool and am pretty sure i encouraged alot of useless slow twitch muscle developement.
I have been ‘training’ for 6 months. [/quote]
I say jump right in with the bands and chains. It’s not some magical club that one needs to get “X” number of pounds in to make the club… they are cheap, work well and can only make your numbers improve. It’s not that you use straight weight and then stall so they act as a platau buster, they should be a regular part of ones training routine in my opinion. Sure I’m not sponsored lifter, I’m just some regular jag off who loves training to make myself stronger.
When I started to use bands and chains my numbers were similar to yours. I was making small gains still but I jumped in head first. Guess what… I made HUGE progress… then I bouhgt some squat briefs and guess what… HUGE progress…then I ran 5-3-1 with straight weights because “all the cool kids were doing it and saying how great it is etc.”. My numbers all went BACKWARDS…( when I started 5-3-1 I could press 395 paused, then on 5-3-1 I could rep 315 x 12, 335 x 8 but tried 395 and got STAPLED ( not a one time occurance. It was many attempts so I just kept repping the shit out of 3-somethings until I said fuck it and went back to West side). I had gotten good at repping ‘light’ weight) and yes I actually bought the book and did it exactly as prescribed. I ran it for almost a year thinking I’d " step back to ultimately move forward". Well I only kept regressing. I’ve been back on a West-Side routine for a few months now and guess what… My numbers are almost back to where I left off. IDK, maybe I’m just weird…
Bottom line… bands and chains are cheap. They won’t fix anything or bestow magick strength powres on you but they do work well when trained with properly.
Sources for chain. I live in nashville and I called a Rigging place. They had 5/8, 3/4 chain out the ass. The guy hooked me up with some 3/4 chain for $2.50 per foot so I bought all he had which was 20’. 5/8 chain was going to be about $2.00/ ft. check your area for “Industrial slings” and such. Maybe you’ll find a deal too.