Name: Can You Gain Muscle Mass with Resistance Bands?
Uploaded: 2017-03-19T11:08:23.000Z
Duration: 6 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Did you know that the earliest recognition of resistance bands came in 1896 when a Swiss

man by the name of Gustav Gossweiler requested a patent for an elastic exercising device?

To be used as a “gymnastic apparatus” to replace other apparatusesses, Gustav’s

invention laid the foundation for other patents to follow up to this day.

And yes, these rubbery tubey porta….bly things has become pretty popular over the

Question is, do they actually build muscle?

Let’s get one thing out of the way first.

If you’re a beginner, absolutely positively you will see results using bands.

You’ll pretty much respond to any type of exercise, including band exercises.

Let’s also get a few more other things out of the way.

Bands are great for people going through physical therapy, rehab, and the elderly, since it’s

lower impact, easier to control, for the most part, and something easy to do at home.

You can get all different colors of the rainbow with very different resistances that can do

Can it give you all of them beautiful gainz?

We know the research definitely show a whole bunch of muscle growth and strength benefits

But as you get out of the phase athletes call “newbie” gains, making sure to use progressive

overload and providing proper stimulus to your muscles is mucho importante for growth.

Well, let’s talk a little bit about the physiology of muscle contraction first.

Contraction occurs within a sarcomere via the sliding filament theory, where cross bridges

are formed by a reaction between the elements of contraction, actin and myosin.

The head of a myosin filament attaches to an adjacent actin filament and forms the so-called

“bridge” and then pulls the sucker towards the center of the sarcomere.

The more it pulls, the shorter the muscle fiber becomes.

Such as when you go from straight missiles to gun show!

Now, based on different lengths of the muscle fiber, the amount of force you can produce

At its longest, force production is lowest due to low contact between the contractile

In the mid-range, force is the highest with the most contact occurring.

And then weak again at its shortest length, where you’re fully flexed, due to overlapping.

Here, take this funky scenario for example.

A guy is pulling a stone towards him attached to a rope.

As he creates slack on the rope, another guy decides to join in behind and help, producing

The more they pull, the more and more people help out, and produce more power!

Eventually, they run of rope space and start stepping back.

But, little did they know there was another group pulling another stone right behind them.

The two groups get in each other’s way, forcing some people out, and force production

Now, apply this to muscle force production, and you’ll see a chart like this.

Weakest in the beginning, strongest in the middle, and weak again at the end.

You’re probably wondering, “How the heck does this have anything to do with resistance

After I explain what that means for your traditional dumbbells!

Now, if I were to take a weight where I can lift pretty confidently at the middle range

of motion, where I’m the strongest, the weight is probably still no good because I

can’t lift it for reps at the weakest part of the range.

That means I have to go lighter, of course.

But now, the weight is too light in the middle and I’m not getting the maximal stimulus

And as far the bicep curl, I’m not getting much of a stimulus at the end neither.

I know, I know, I said that you’re weaker at the end of the movement, too.

But in this case, something in biomechanics known as a moment arm, is very short, meaning

the line of resistance is very close to the axis, or your joint or elbow in this case.

The shorter the moment arm, the less force needed to move an object, thus, in the bicep

curl, not a lot of force produced at the end.

I probably confused you even more than before, but let’s continue…

Okay, now let’s FINALLY look at resistance bands.

The resistance applied from elastic bands are different from that of traditional weights.

The WAY it is different is that it applies a growing level of resistance the more you

That means, at the very start, the amount of tension and resistance is at its lowest,

and then at its highest at the end of the movement.

That’s good though, in the case of the bicep curl, because that’s what you want!

A growing resistance since you’re weakest in the beginning, strongest in the middle,

Take the side raises, for example, where you’re super struggling towards the top of the movement

And some bands, especially loop bands that are stronger, has an extremely wide range

of resistance, like this one, where it goes from 50 to 125 pounds of force, almost 3 times

So, this is a huge disadvantage to resistance bands, along with the fact that you’ll grow

out of the very light bands really quickly and then using the heavier bands will be tough

because it’ll start pulling YOU instead of you pulling it.

As far as gains, it looks feasible, but only up to a certain point.

We know weights have a constant load, which can be good but it also means not enough resistance

for the middle range of motion to create an optimal stimulus.

And we know bands are good because of a continuous load, but is too low in the beginning and

Adding bands onto your weights is probably the best way to go to compensate for the differences

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Can You Gain Muscle Mass with Resistance Bands?

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