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So Bands Don't Work, Huh? 

The Effects of Combining Elastic and Free Weight Resistance on Strength and Power in Athletes

This study was undertaken to determine whether combined elastic and free weight resistance (CR) provides different strength and power adaptations than free weight resistance (FWR) training alone. Forty-four young (age 20 ± 1 years), resistance-trained (4 ± 2 years' experience) subjects were recruited from men's basketball and wrestling teams and women's basketball and hockey teams at Cornell University. Subjects were stratified according to team, then randomly assigned to the control (C; n = 21) or experimental group (E; n = 23). Before and after 7 weeks of resistance training, subjects were tested for lean body mass, 1 repetition maximum back squat and bench press, and peak and average power. Both C and E groups performed identical workouts except that E used CR (i.e., elastic resistance) for the back squat and bench press, whereas the C group used FWR alone. CR was performed using an elastic bungee cord attached to a standard barbell loaded with plates. Elastic tension was accounted for in an attempt to equalize the total work done by each group. Statistical analyses revealed significant (P < 0.05) between-group differences after training. Compared with C, improvement for E was nearly three times greater for back squat (16.47 ± 5.67 vs. 6.84 ± 4.42 kg increase), two times greater for bench press (6.68 ± 3.41 vs. 3.34 ± 2.67 kg increase), and nearly three times greater for average power (68.55 ± 84.35 vs. 23.66 ± 40.56 watt increase). Training with CR may be better than FWR alone for developing lower and upper body strength, and lower body power in resistance-trained individuals. Long-term effects are unclear, but CR training makes a meaningful contribution in the short term to performance adaptations of experienced athletes.

Well, this goes a long way towards clearing up that misconception, I'd hope.

Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell fame has been credited with bringing elastic bands to popularity in the training of strength athletes, but there's been a lot of resistance (haha) to the idea in some circles.

The big reason, of course, was a lack of clinical research on the subject. In all fairness, this is actually a valid criticism -- otherwise, we'd be taking the bro-route of going by how it feels, yo.

The late Mel Siff, along with Louie, actually did do a comparison study of bands only, free weights only, and combination training that was presented in the Supertraining book -- but since nobody's actually read that all the way through, I'm not surprised it hasn't gotten greater attention. The force-plate analysis in the book showed substantial positive increases in both force and power output from the combined-resistance groups, much like this study.

Only now, we've got a statistically-significant sample and it's in a peer-reviewed journal. This study was done with 44 Div-1 athletes, male and female, with an average training age in excess of three years.  

The combined resistance (CR) group used band tension ~20% of their 1RM; for this I give the researchers immense credit, because so far nobody that actually trains with bands has ever bothered to really compute the tension involved. We mostly just guess, and go by color.

The results were quite staggering: over the seven-week cycle of the study, the bench press improved 8% in the CR group vs 4% in the free-weight group; back squat up 16% vs. 6%. Average power tested by the vertical jump also increased significantly in the CR group over the free-weight group. No changes were noticed in lean body mass, but you wouldn' t necessarily expect that. 

Of course, this only serves as validation for what a lot of strength athletes and particularly powerlifters have known for quite awhile: bands do magic. 

Now, they aren't necessarily for beginners -- you need some basic foundation of strength before they can come into play. They have a different feel from straight weight, due to the different force curve. They take some getting used to, but they seem to make a very real difference when used on the big lifts. If you want to feel something freaky, bench with bands for a few sets, then add around 40 lbs and take the bands off. See what happens for an idea of how the bands are helping strength out. 

The neural effects are just part of it -- there's also the effect of the downward pull of the bands, which seems to do some neat things to eccentric EMG, meaning that the muscles are having to work harder to resist the bands. Louie's speculated before that this can potentially assist in growth, and for that reason some have suggested using them for other exercises. I know I've personally used them on Hammer Strength machines, for one example.  

The study "only" tested a 7-week block of training -- but again, this is not something that would be out of the norm for an athlete needing to increase strength. And another thing that, anecdotally, has been noted by powerlifters -- sometimes you need a break from the bands.

For more information on this subject, read up on www.elitefts.com and www.westside-barbell.com  

Bands are available from both JumpStretch and IronWoody. I'm not sure which are better, since I've only used the JumpStretch bands, but I hear both are quite good. They aren't terribly expensive, or hard to use even in a crowded gym environment. Definitely worth a look if you're at a stalling point.  

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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."