Two days of rest + shoulders/back workout + new gym equipment = Time to smash it!!

Day: 55 of 77
Date: 5/07/2013
Workout Day: 36
Weight (lb): 159.4 (12.4 lb loss)
Body Fat %: 13.3 (3.3% loss)
Health: Fine 10/10

I’m back in the gym today, fully recovered from three days of training followed by two days of good relaxing and good food. The workout of the day is the last of the shoulders and back sessions of MicroCycle 5, and this time I’m able to properly test out my new purchase of the Bodylastics Resistance Bands MMA set. I’ll do a full review some time, but for now I’ll just say that I’m extremely pleased with them. They give me a plethora of new exercises that I can perform and provide a whole new set of tools to manipulate intensity. Bands provide a linear (but increasing) strength curve. Think about a rubber band that stretches easily at the start and gets more difficult as it’s stretched. A gravity based weight (e.g. dumbbell) has a flat strength curve. It’s always the same weight/difficulty at any height. This difference between bands and weights is significant and provides pros and cons for your workout. The biggest benefit of bands (and cables)  is the ability to create force in any direction, as opposed to just down (gravity) for weights. A simple example is, to work the pecs a bench press provides no tension at the top of the movement, whereas cables or bands pulling from the sides (i.e. a Flie) exert full tension in this position.

The bands helped me achieve a great workout. One of the best I’ve had for a while. If you do rely on a home gym and don’t have a cable machine then a set of bands will certainly help you. I bought mine from Amazon here.