Resistance bands

[Juan]

Anyone use them as part of their work out? If so, what are the pros and cons?

[I-mon]

started using them (old bicycle inner tubes) a couple of months ago. awesome stuff. doing great things for my shoulder rehab, as i can use them to "isolate then integrate" the muscles around my shoulder blade: lower and middle trapezius, serratus anterior, rotator cuff. no cons.

[Azer]

I use them once in a while to test alignment and such. I basically just stand in some stance (ZZ, or what have you) have one end of the bands under my feet, the other rapped around my hands, then just see if I can move my arms around while keeping my arms/shoulders firmly connected to the spine. For me it mostly just provides feedback for correct structure, i.e. so the pressure from the bands is going down my spine to my legs. But it does also strengthen the shoulder muscles in to the right alignment and helps strengthen the right hip/spine alignment too.. useful but, not a workout in itself I'd say, but they are dead cheap and I'm sure there is loads more you could do with them..

[Darth Rock&Roll]

I use them.

They are great for increasing intensity and difficulty in a wide variety of standard bodywork type exercises.

Of course, if you forfeit form, then all is for naught like anything else where you use devices.

[Michael]

I really, really thought this was going to be a political thread about revolutionaries. Oh, well.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

...or at least black metal music... lol

[yusuf]

I really, really thought this was going to be a political thread about revolutionaries. Oh, well.

inspired from that swiss book 'Total resistance'

[josh]

I trained with these a bit in the past, I was shown some CMA apparatus exercises that traditionally were done with ox tendon, and have also used them to test structure as described above. FYI, it hurts when they snap and pop you in the face. These are the sturdiest and strongest ones that I have come across:
http://www.spri.com/ItemGroup.aspx?Item ... upTypeID=1

[Darth Rock&Roll]

josh, believe it or not, those are all crap.
what you want is the bands that have ring/clip connection and not ball in tube version.

I have bought ball in tube type and they all invariably will snap.
the clip type are far superior.

[Juan]

Thanks for the feed back guys. I think I'm going to pick some up at the local Big 5 and try them out.

[josh]

Cool, I will check those out, thanks... seems that the clip variety has the added advantage that you can continue increasing resistance by adding more bands, which is nice.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Yeah and you can add/reduce, use harder ones or lighter ones etc etc. definitely the superior product and, they don't snap!