bands and chains

[robert da strongman]

what is your experience with them?

knowing louie simmons has changed his approach. what do you think?

[tjoe]

A - didn't know Louie changed... in what way, I haven't been up to date on him I guess. Gimme some knowledge bro!!

B - I liked them a lot when I used that method. The one thing I really liked was that after a while using them, nothing "felt" heavy. I may have missed a weight but was always extremely confident going into it, unracking you just thought "Yeah, I got this" and that helps a lot down the road.

[billy mimnaugh]

They are probably the two most important inovations that powerlifting has had in 30 years.The bands and chains force you to push hard through the middle of the lift.Most lifters only concentrate on the initial drive and the lockout of lifts.The bands and chains force you to explode through the entire movement so you are forced to "outrun" both.

The bands also make you drop faster in the squat and bench and the faster you lower a weight,the harder the contraction when you reverse it.Many credit the huge explosions in numbers to advances in gear,but,in my opinion its the bands and chains in combination with the gear that has accounted for the incredible numbers you see today.

[Kelly Baker]

I love my bands and the work I can do with them, but haven't tried chains. My bands are used for explosive power development more than the strongman or powerlifter end of things. I have tied them on to a bar to bench with which was amazingly difficult!

[billy mimnaugh]

The chains work differently then the bands.They swing you around a bit and really work the stabalisers well.We normally do a three week wave with chains,then three weeks with a green and a three week wave with a blue in the squat[box squat].Then we might take a weight or have a wave with straight weight or just start with bands again.

[robert da strongman]

A - didn't know Louie changed... in what way, I haven't been up to date on him I guess. Gimme some knowledge bro!!

B - I liked them a lot when I used that method. The one thing I really liked was that after a while using them, nothing "felt" heavy. I may have missed a weight but was always extremely confident going into it, unracking you just thought "Yeah, I got this" and that helps a lot down the road.

instead of the speed day they now do the repeated effort method.
bands and chains with max or above weights

[tjoe]

interesting...
no bands or chains for the RE stuff though?
Funny this thread started when it did... A buddy of mine failed miserably at a bench program he was on (program is good but he won't eat enough) so to torture him a bit at the end I busted out the minis AND the chains! really try to teah him how to drive through the entire motion. It was hs first time with them so just kinda playin around but he got the idea pretty quick :)

[robert da strongman]

not they use both on RE day...its sick!
i was doing that on Mike Miller's ESP.


let me search for some info. ther was a vid of it on youtube but i cant access that from work.

[tjoe]

thanks, appreciate it!
I'll be interested to see (read) more about it.

[robert da strongman]

ok so i giggled it and found....barely a damn thing.
so here is what i could make out of the craziness....

The old RE was 50% of max weights doing bodybuilding/hypertrophy type exercises.

the new RE...replaces the DE day. but the %'s are higher than 50%. i believe 80+
along with massive band and chain tension.

footage here:
http://atlargenutrition.com/westside_trainingfootage.php

[tjoe]

I love Louie because he always coming up with new stuff...
I hate Louie because he always coming up with new stuff...

Hahaha
Thanks for the link bro!

[robert da strongman]

yeah i saw the video before. some brutal deadlifting in there.

[Thad]

We were using chains when we did log press.

[realmccoy]

I think the RE is better method for Squat than the DE, because from my experience I never got stronger in squat using DE even thou I was doing ME three days later but when I switched to a routine that uses RE my squat went up 50 pounds in four months


Thanks for sharing the video

[robert da strongman]

the new RE is a sick twist...

Mike Miller used something similar in his ESP training.

[weightgain4000]

I noticed a huge carry over using bands and chains. Strait weight squats felt so much easier after a wave of using greens and 120lbs chains.

[GameofInches]

Bands and chains are great, except chains are too expensive for me to afford right now and I hopefully will be getting bands once I finish school and get a job in May.

[robert da strongman]

ny barbell isnt bad for chains.

elite is 105 for one set.

hell go to any farm or hardware store and find the thickest stuff

[GameofInches]

ny barbell isnt bad for chains.

elite is 105 for one set.

hell go to any farm or hardware store and find the thickest stuff

Yeah, I need to go to a hardware store and try and get some. Hopefully this summer I will.

[crashcrew56]

I'm bringing this thread back because I have taken a step away from using bands and chains on my squats and I thought I would comment on some things I have noticed...

In the past I have done a lot of training with chains and bands on my squats, but recently my coach left the gym and most of the guys I train with prefer to use straight weight. My squats have really been taking off lately, and I contribute part of that too the fact that I was using a lot of bands and chains in the past. I have noticed one thing though, since I have stepped away from the bands I have had some form issues, and some problems with stability. I have noticed that band "ground" the lifter and makes them stable, I felt very unstable in my squats for a while without the bands there to help "ground" me. Another thing I have picked up on about the bands actually came from Mike Cartinian, is that the bands will change a lifters form, depending on where they are set up at on the rack. A lot of people can really sit back a lot further than they normally would on a squat because the bands will help to keep them upright. After he said that, a lot of things really started to make sense, I had a lot of problems with sitting back too much because I spent a lot of time with the bands.

Other than the squat, I love using bands for my deadlift, I think they are great to help with explosiveness on the deadlift, which is something that most lifters have a lot of problems with. I also enjoy using bands for my lockout benching and my speed benching.


What I am trying to get at, is that for a lot of you who are new to powerlifting or new to bands and chains in their training, try not to spend too much time using them. They are a great tool, but remember in a meet you don't have those bands hooked up to the bar on a squat, bench, or deadlift.

[SoxFan11]

I have used bands a bit, but since switching over to 5/3/1 the only thing they get used for is hanging ketllebells from the bench bar for shoulder prehab. I do plan on bringing them back more into my deadlift training, as I feel I could use more explosiveness.

[rinse]

instead of the speed day they now do the repeated effort method.
bands and chains with max or above weights

This isn't really true. They do work up on squat day but not always and they still get in several speed sets. The bench hasn't changed.

[Travis Bell]

Rinse is correct.

Our bench training has not changed at all.

For squat, RE method is not used all the time. In fact it's used on a more rare basis more far out from a meet.

We use tons of different methods all the time. Things are always fluctuating.