Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2080: Get Jacked With Bands!

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover seven reasons why bands are a unique way to add variety and build muscle. One of the most effective yet most overlooked tools for building maximum strength, maximum muscle, and mobility in enhancing fat loss are resistance bands! Bands can be quite advanced. (2:26) Bands bad PR and poor application. (4:43) 7 Unique Benefits of Bands. #1 - Strength curve. (14:17) #2 - Constant tension. (17:59) #3 - Encourages controlled negative and good form. (18:55) #4 - Does far less muscle damage. (21:42) #5 - Encourages isometric squeeze. (29:17) #6 - TOTALLY novel. (32:40) #7 - Easy on the joints and low risk of injury. (35:39) Related Links/Products Mentioned LAUNCH SPECIAL: MAPS Bands, Retail for $97, with $30 off during the launch. The public price is $67. Includes 2 E-Books: Bonus #1: Ultimate Bodyweight Training Guide (Retail: $47), Bonus #2: Quick Meals for Health & Fitness (Retail: $47). Money back guarantee, Ends Sunday, May 28th. **Coupon Code BANDS30 at checkout** Visit Joy Mode for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first order** Maximize Muscle Growth & Recovery with Anabolic Triggering Sessions – Mind Pump TV The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle - Mind Pump Media Mind Pump #2005: How To Incorporate Isometric Training Into Your Routine Mind Pump #1897: Why Phasing Your Workouts Is So Important & How To Properly Switch It Up Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode, we talk about band training and how it's actually a very often overlooked but extremely effective advanced training tool.

Strength training, if you use just bands, you can get better results than if you didn't at all. It's actually quite significant. In fact, we released a new program based on just band training. Now, I know a lot of people think bands, they think convenience, it's for beginners. No, no, no, not this program. This program is hardcore. In fact, it's the only maps program where you work out every single day. Why? Because you

can do that with bands. So this is a full band based workout program for eight weeks long. It's a two month program. This is a brand new launch. Again, it's called maps bands. And because it's a new launch, here's what we got. The program is gonna retail for $97, but during the launch period, it's only gonna be $67, but we're also gonna throw in a couple free things. We created two brand new ebooks. The first one is Ultimate Bodyweight Training Guide. These are all the best bodyweight exercises.

It's on this book. We also have created the other book, which is Quick Meals for Health and Fitness. This is our first recipe book. You get both those books for free. Now we're going to sell them later on, but if you do this during the launch period, if you sign up for Maps, Bands during the launch period, you get Maps, Bands for $67 and you get those eBooks absolutely free.

So if you're interested in taking advantage in getting this new program, go to mapsbans.com and use the code bands 30 for the discount and the free ebooks. Now, this episode is also brought to you by one of our sponsors. Joy-mo, this is actually a product designed to increase blood flow to you know where. This is a sexual performance enhancing product and I'm actually going to tell you, it actually works. We were super skeptical. We first got approached by them,

but it's legit, it's all science-based, it's a real product, it really works. By the way, it also works as a good pre-workout because blood flow's good for exercise as well. Anyway, go check them out, go to usejoymod.com, forward slash mind pump, use the code mind pump, but check out and get 20% off your first order. All right, here comes the show.

One of the most effective yet most overlooked tools for building maximum strength, maximum muscle, mobility and enhancing fat loss, believe it or not, are resistance bands. I know a lot of people think resistance bands and they think, oh, it's good for convenience, it's good for beginners. Yeah, that's true, but here's something else that's true.

For advanced lifters, it can often be the missing piece that will take your body to the next level. By the way, the data and the studies over the last decades, literally five decades, proves this. If you've never done a full cycle of band training, you are missing out. You will hit new PRs and all of your core lifts if you listen to this episode and apply it carefully. Bands can be quite advanced with how they get you stronger and build muscle. So I love one of my favorite things to do on the podcast is to take an overlooked method of muscle building or strength building or fat loss and

bringing it to people and saying, you know, a lot of people don't use this the way that it can be used, but check this out and then we present like, oh, this could be a game changer. Bands are that. Bands by far of all the non-traditional strength training tools possesses those qualities. And the evidence is very clear.

This is not me just postulating this isn't our anecdote. Like, bands played a massive role in revolutionizing strength sports, both Olympic and powerlifting strength sports. Now we're starting to see bodybuilders use them because they're unique in how they they they trigger muscle building. So if you don't use them, it's like, dude, I love resurfacing a lot of these ideas, especially. I mean, I went down the road of isometrics and I, you know, definitely received the benefits from that and figured out like how impactful they are on performance and how impactful they are on rehabilitation, all that. And actually the rehabilitation size, what led me to bands, but then I started applying

these predator bands. So predator bands, they had multiple bands stringed up to a handle. So it was like a lot more resistance than when I was lifting before in the rehabilitation setting. And it was like a completely different experience. And my muscles were benefiting from it like far beyond what I thought. I was going to bring up isometrics also.

What is it about? Cause I would put those two kind of the same category. They both are these forgotten tools to building muscle that we've been around for a very long time. For some weird reason, both of them have made their way into the rehab beginner category and have remained there. And you do see, so, you know, you bring up like muscle, like in the bodybuilding community right now, it's super popular. And it has been popular since I was competing to use bands on machines and stuff.

I was kind of like how I would tease competitors because it's like, oh, they're finally getting to the research that's around the benefits of of this, and this is their way of integrating it. And it's like, why is it that those two things, both isometrics and bands, have remained popular in the rehab and beginner world, but are less popular in the bodybuilding world. It's as valuable as they are, why is that? Okay, because one of the most science-based segments of the strength training, I don't

know, market or field. So if you look at strength training as this huge market, everything from rehab to advanced strength training, bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, athletics, okay. If you look at that as like a, as a graph, if you look at the benefits of things like bands and isometrics, but let's stick to bands. If you look at the benefits, one of the top benefits is they're very safe. So you have physical therapists which are very science-based. So physical therapy is constantly evolving. It's a well-funded space, physical therapists are some of the best people in the world at rehabbing

injury. So they need to use strength training because strength training is phenomenal at rehabbing. In fact, that's the primary form of exercise they used to rehab, but free weights and even machines can pose certain challenges for people. Bands are very safe. So they said, oh, here's strength training and it's safe. Let's use this. And then what happens is it takes a long time for everybody else to adopt it. But what's interesting

is this, when you look at like government funded strength training, you look at the, you know, the 20th century with the Soviet Union. During that time, the Olympics, it's always been like this, the Olympics. It's always been ways for countries to display their power or how advanced they are. So like Germany, during the time of Nazi, they want to show how great they were. Of course, the famous story of Jesse Owens going on and just mop on the floor with everybody, right? Yeah, the American.

The Soviets funded the Olympic sports, because it was their way of showing the world how awesome communism was. So they funded strength training and they had top scientists studying strength training and they studied things like herbs and supplements and hormones or some of the first athletes to use steroids and strength training techniques and programming. They used bands well before everybody else and their athletes were kicking the crap out of everybody. They dominated Olympic lifting for a long time. It wasn't till the Iron Curtain came down that our coaches went there and some of their

coaches came here and they came back and they brought back some of their techniques. Westside Barbell was one of the first strength training circles in the U.S. to use bands. And that's one of the reasons why they became so dominant in powerlifting. Nobody was using bands in their training in America before that. And they learned it from the Soviet. So yeah, but I mean, that's where you find most of the

most effective methods and techniques. It's either gonna come from like astronaut training or from like a rehabilitation protocol as being too like they have to have like the most impactful, the most effective way to build muscle possible in those like crazy extreme environments, but also with the rehab setting, it's like you have all this money from insurance, you have all these eyes and the scientific study and the clinical setting is very meticulous about researching this whole thing from stem to stern, whether or not they're getting success with each patient.

I think that, like you said, it takes a while for this to now trickle into sports, which is then the next sort of venue. And then after sports kind of makes its way into the general. So that is your theory, you guys both your theory then that what we're seeing right now, which is the popularity of bands being used

on hammer strength machines and stuff like that. And the body is just kind of like the beginning of it Getting more popular like do you guys foresee? more more programming more more emphasis put on Bands being utilized for even like your your strength your strength Sure, they had bad PR before so typically the way it starts is this it starts in rehab Then it moves to strength sports Especially the ones that have you know strong organizations. Why because?

Strength sports or objective you either lift more you don't so it's like this works. This doesn't work body buildings Usually last because it's so subjective Diet can play a big role the jepeic, you know genetics and how you look it's like I said it's very subjective But they usually follow. They'll see what the strength guys and girls are doing, and then they'll say, oh, let's apply some of these techniques, and then it gets into sports and lots of. In high-level athletics, they'll look at the stuff from a rehab perspective, but they're typically apprehensive at applying brand new things, because if it's, it ain't broke, then

don't fix it. You want to mess up your top athletes. But once one team applies it and does well, then it starts to kinda spread like wildfire. But there was bad PR with bands, because bands hit the market and the way they advertise bands, and I get this, there's a bigger market if you're looking at targeting

the average person who doesn't have space, doesn't have equipment, and doesn't have much time. Well here, convenience. Convenience, use bands. The smaller market is the hardcore like build muscle and improve your performance market. So it got BAD PR and that's what it got relegated to, which is, okay, it's true.

It's true to be convenient. You could travel with bands anywhere. They're very low risk of injury. We'll get to that. You know, you can attach them at different points. So it's easy to use or whatever. But a lot of people, because of that, thought, this is not advanced. Training tool, if I just train with bands, I'm gonna lose muscle.

It's not gonna. This is nothing to be further from the truth. In fact, if you've never done a full, just pure band training block, and we'll get into why, and we'll get into all the nuts and bolts. But if you've never done a full six or eight week or 10 week training block of just bands, you have no idea, literally no idea what you're missing. It's one of the most effective ways

that you can break through plateaus and hit new PRs, is by simply focusing on this unique form of resistance which we're gonna kind of get into. So, in terms of piggyback on sort of the bad PR, so initially when it hit the general public, they were just offering like these two bands, right? And so like if you get somebody that's like reasonably strong, they're gonna end up inevitably that the band's gonna fray

and it's gonna snap in half, they're gonna have a bad experience. And then this is the association that sort of like leads from there, when in fact, they're going to have a bad experience. And then this is the association that sort of like leads from there, when in fact, you know, they've innovated quite substantially on bands to where they layer it now. So it's like super thick. You can get ones that are like two, three hundred pounds of resistance. Like there's, they offer a lot more robust type bands now that you can get on the market. So I think it's not just bad PR.

I also think it's poor application. It reminds me again, I'm going to keep going back to my experience with the introduction of like isometrics. Like isometrics were the plank and the wall sit. And every trainer did it as a time killer for clients. Like the application of I- I mean, and look at all the reviews that we've got back from Cemetery.

People, the reviews that we've had from Cemetery is one of our best selling programs. It's done wonders for all of our clients. In there, we have a whole phase of I-Sometrics that we've built in there. I feel the same thing when I think of bands, when I see bands, I see people using it as kind of a warm up tool every now and then,

or you see them strapping it to machines. It's not really programmed in. They're not really comparing it to something else to where they can actually measure the progress. So I really think a lot of it is not only bad PR. It's also poor application on the programming of it and utilizing it correctly to where we can really measure like, oh shit, like you are 100% correct. If you look at all of the resistance training it like you are 100% correct. If you look at all of the resistance training tools and methods, all of them have strengths and weaknesses. All of them have unique qualities. You have to program your workout

to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses or take advantage even of the weaknesses. That's how you maximize the power of them. So free weights versus machines versus body weight versus bands. If I trained a pure free weight workout or a pure machine workout or a pure body weight workout or a pure band workout, the programming is going to change because each one of those has their own values and each one has its own kind of weaknesses. So you have to change the programming. Everything from reps and frequency and volume changes because each one works the body

a little bit differently. If you don't do it that way, you're just throwing an exercise in it. Sprinkly and all in. And you don't really get the value. One of the most valuable thing about bands, and this is what power lifters and Olympic lifters, and like I I said Westside Barbell understood about bands is they have a unique strength curve. There's no form of resistance that matches the strength curve or resistance curve of

a band. A band is easy when you first start pulling it, it gets harder, the longer you pull it. So how is this applied to you? First off, it's different, it's novel, right? So it's different. But what's so unique about that? What's so special about that? A lot of lifts, a lot of your lifts, you were weaker at the bottom, stronger at the top. A lot of your lifts are like this. It's not most of them. I was going to say which ones are not. That mean, that's what I think is most unique about the strength curve is that it follows

the body's natural strength curve. In fact, I can't think of that. Yeah, I can't think of one that wouldn't be like that, right? I'm sure there is one out there, but you could reverse the band. But my point is you have a something that gives you less or more resistance depending how much you stretch it out. So what does this mean? Well, that means like if I'm doing a barbell squat in the max I could do, let's say, is 300 pounds, that's the most weight I could lift at the weakest part of the rep, which is the bottom.

Not the strongest part of the rep. Like, if you told me how much could you squat going down four inches, it's way more than 300 pounds. I'm limited to 300 pounds because at the bottom where I'm weakest, that's the most I can lift. The ones I get past that bottom part, the way it moves. Well, with the band, theoretically, I could get a band that's 300 pounds at the bottom, but as I squat up and get stronger, the band gets harder. So it's 300 pounds, 300, five pounds, 300, 10 pounds, all the way up to, let's say, 350 pounds, where now I'm still hitting a PR or maxing out throughout the entire rep. That trains your body in a way

that weights simply can't. This is why the power lifters figured this out and were breaking records. By the way, I don't know if you guys have a personal story with this, but at one point I wanted to hit, this was years ago, I wanted to hit a 600 pound deadlift and I wanted to hit a 430 pound squat. And I was, I don't remember where I was plateaued but I was plateaued for a while. And then I started going in researching powerlifting

and going through and seeing what their training methods and what they did. And what stood out to me was the use of resistance bands. That resistance bands got me to add something significant, like 30 or 40 pounds to each left. Simply by programming bands in them, attaching them to the bar even and adding that kind of resistance curve. And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that this tool was able to increase my

strength so much. And of course, the muscle followed. This is a very unique thing about bands that allows it to develop your strength in muscle in ways that other forms of resistance can't. Now again, this is not superior to other forms. It's different. That's again, what makes it so special. Yeah, so I keep kind of thinking about these parallels between isometrics and bands and even with the strength curve. So one thing, isometrics, you want to focus on each part of that range of motion where you're weakest and also you're strongest, but you want to be able to hold those specific angles and generate this intrinsic force.

So I'm kind of tensing my muscles and trying to generate as much strength internally just for my body. Let's say in the beginning portion of the wrap, also in the middle, also at the end. And so you're trying to produce that intrinsically, whereas the band now, you have that extrinsic kind of resistance to capture that and take you through, you know, that challenging, like it challenges the end ranges a lot more so than say you're your conventional dumbbells and all. Totally, totally. One of my, my another point that I love about bands is it encourages, because sometimes people in these free weights,

they don't do a good job of maintaining constant tension. Free weights have a tendency to swing or drop a weight. You can't do that with bands. If you do, you're gonna snap back down real quick. If you do a lateral with the band because it's pulling so hard at the top, you are encouraged to do a slow negative. Whenever I used to train clients with just bands,

I would always marvel at all of a sudden, look at my client who I've been trying to get to do a four negative forever, and they have the hardest time doing it, naturally he's doing it with bands, because you try doing a fast rep with a band, and it's all the way down. It's so real hard.

Yeah, it comes back. So then you just naturally, like you get up to the rep and then you kind of control it on the way down. Every exercise encourages this constant tension, and there's plenty of studies to show that the type of tension that you maintain makes this significant impact on how much muscle you build. It's actually one of my favorite ways to teach exactly that. So I've talked on the show many times, you know, that's like one of the things I always say is challenging people to actually do a four-second negative because we just don't have a tendency to do it.

So I had clients that no matter how much I communicated, I couldn't get them to do it until I started to utilize bands. You asked about personal stories. You know, I actually don't have a good personal story for myself because like many things that I did as a coach, I was a much better coach than other people than myself. And it wasn't until I was traveling around to clients' houses when I was doing private training. And I was forced with a client who had nothing but bands. And I remember being like, oh my god, like I wanted her to get like a set of dumbbells or get something going.

And you know, she basically challenged me. Can you design a program for me to, you know, get me to, she wanted to lose some weight or or her words tone up, that was the goal. And I remember being like, of course, I'm gonna take on the challenge. Yeah, yeah, I can. But I remember being blown away. Of course, I understood what I needed to do, programming wise, but never at that point

had I really, truly applied nothing but bands and scene. Like in the back of my head, I have to admit that there was a bit of me that was like in doubt. Like, oh, there's, it's probably not gonna see the same kind of results as if I actually had all this. And I was already kind of making the excuses on what I'd have to overcome when she doesn't see the change,

but she actually had phenomenal results enough that I was like, oh shit, like I don't need nothing, but just set a ban. The constant tension in the encouragement of the controlled negative, when I watch people's form, when they're working out with bands, they're tendencies to have better form. It literally, people's form, when they're working out with bands, they're tendencies to have better form.

It literally, it's like, it almost forces better technique and better form, which is one of the reasons why I think it's so valuable, because you do a movement with a band, your form is gonna be a little bit better, just because the band itself makes you get better form and encourages it as you're using it. Now, I've told this story before, but when I grand open the 24th fitness on Santa Teresa,

we opened the cardio area before we opened the machine and freeway area, but we were allowing members to come in. And I remember asking them, like, well, what are we going to do about the personal trainers? And like, well, you guys, you use bands. Same thing. I thought, oh crap. Yeah. Okay.

Like bands that can be really tough. We sold more personal training and got more people re-enrolling during that period of time than I had done in other gyms with other equipment. And the number one piece of feedback I got from clients was they love the band work out. In fact, when we opened up the rest of the gym, a significant portion of them say,

can I just stick to the bands? And then so many of my trainers became, these evangelists for bands, a significant portion of them say, can I just stick to the bands? And then so many of my trainers became these evangelists for bands where a lot of them were like, oh man, we got to figure the South. Or I guess I'll try and work with. A lot of them came to me and were like, Sal, I prefer training clients this way. Like they're getting great results. I didn't think that these tools were that effective. So same thing, we saw this firsthand with everybody.

The next point, and this I think is one of the most overlooked benefits and values of bands. This is why I use bands in the first map program, maps and a ballack for trigger sessions. Right. The total trigger session concept. This right here is something that a good coach or a good trainer, so good coach or trainer will look at a form of exercise.

We'll look at its strength and weaknesses and know how to maximize both. One of the quote unquote weaknesses, it's not a weakness of bands, is it doesn't cause much damage as free weights to your body. Like you do a set of curls with bands, even heavy ones, you do a set of curl with dumbbells, dumbbells, you get sore. The bands you don't get a sore. Right. And everybody knows this. Anybody's ever trained hard with bands, even power lifters know this. They know that, you know, max effort lifts with bands just way more forgiving on the body than if you were to use let's say chains or free weights. And nobody can figure out why even I can't figure out why, you know, I try to think about what's happening in the

body, but there's a lot of mystery there. But it's true, it causes less damage. And a lot of people say, well, that's a bad thing. You can't send this out of a muscle building signal. No, this is an advantage. This is an advantage when you change the programming. So less muscle damage means I can work out way more. I can work out more frequently. I can do more sets.

I can hit body parts more often. And now I get this benefit of this frequent stimulation of muscles. I get this benefit of frequent practicing of techniques of exercises. There's, you cannot work out as much with free weights as you can with bands, even when the intensity is high. You have a high intensity band work

at high intensity free weight workout. You could do like one third more frequency and volume with the bands, then you can with the free weights. And then there's all the benefits of that. More calorie burn, better for your body, practicing the technique. Oh, people who love working out, use bands. You could work out like crazy with bands

and it's not gonna beat you up. You know, listen to you say that right now, it makes me realize that that's the other piece of why this didn't get popular. We are talking about the poor application of it and whatever the other reason that we said that people didn't for some reason adopt it, that has to be the other major reason.

Bad PR is the other one. You said bad PR and then I said poor application. The third is because it doesn't get you hell of sore, like other workouts do. And how much was the gauge for all workouts? I mean, even as coaches and trainers, which we're all guilty of, of measuring the effectiveness of a workout with a client

based on a how sore they got. I mean, that's still a stigma today, and that we're trying to, and which if you do a band workout like this, and you expect, oh, I'm gonna be crushed, like I just did a high volume squat workout, and you don't workout like this and you expect, oh, I'm gonna be crushed like I just did a high volume squat workout and you don't feel that way, you go, oh,

it doesn't work as well. So I bet you. Especially if you do a body part split. 100% that's the other reason why it's not as popular is that there's still is that idea that how sore you are is how good of a workout that. This is how, again, this is how trigger sessions were created, but I experimented initially with trigger sessions

with high intensity. And what I would do is I'd do, let's say I only hit chest twice a week, I figured out that if I did four days a week, but two of those days were with just bands, it was, I got great results, and I didn't over train. I feel was free weights way too much. So let's say you're in the gym

and you're following a program and you're doing let's say flies and you stop two reps short of failure because that's the programming. Well you use bands, go to failure. Now you can go to failure and you're not going to create much damage or let's say you did three sets. Now you do six sets. You triple the volume or double the volume. Are you going to get the same results? No, no, no, you actually get better results, especially if this is new for you because there's something about frequency that is special. There really is something about practicing exercises over and over again That is outside of the simple muscle building signal, you know repair Model that is something special. So if you've never done anything like this, you know, you could go literally if you've been working out for a while

And you're pretty consistent You could do a seven-day a week Intense band workout that normally would fry you with free weights and machines and all of a sudden you're recovering better than you did before You know, I don't I actually don't think that that's something uniquely special I think that's just something that's overlooked when we talk about lifting weights for some reason If you talk about playing the guitar or Be could it your craft or being a good artist or being a good basketball player Thought of the more you practice the more you're gonna get out of it the better you're gonna be at your thing

So this idea that that same thing would not apply to resistance training is funny to me so. I don't think it's special at all. I think is, I think, you know, Arnold used to say this, right? Arnold used to say he could go in the gym and get more out of one exercise than somebody who's spent an hour doing 20 different exercises. That's because he's an expert on it. And that's the truth because he's so good at connecting the right muscles, creating as much intensity and intrinsic forces he possibly can. So he does that one set and he gets tremendous value. There's no difference in that. And then the average person, if you practice these movements and you do them

frequently, you're not only going to get the benefits of building muscle and burning calories and burning body fat, but you're going to get better at these movements, getting better at these movements, which again, plays into the whole thing that we talk about all these movements, which again, plays into the whole thing that we talk about all the time, which is, man, it feels so much easier in my 40s to stay in shape than it did. Well, yeah, part of that is because I can go into a workout,

know exactly what I need to do and get the most out of that workout because I've practiced and it's not so long. And I'm gonna help here with that because some people might be listening to say, oh, it's because you can push yourself harder now. No, it's not about pushing harder. It's about knowing how to do the technique

in the best way possible. That's all it is. Again, using the analogy of athletics, like is a quarterback gonna throw farther because he knows how to throw harder all of a sudden, or because he knows how to throw better. That's right. So, same thing with exercise.

We tend to relegate strength training to, oh, damage the muscle and build, and we forget that they're techniques. We forget that squatting is a technique, curling is a technique, overhead pressing is a technique. No, no, no, they're all techniques, and the better you are at the techniques,

the more you're gonna get out of them. One of the best ways to get better at exercise is to do it often. I'll use this example right here. If we took two people who did the exact same muscle building signal to the body, but one of them trained once a week, the other one trained four days a week. You're gonna get better with the four days a week,

simply because they're moving more, burning more calories and practicing more. You're gonna get more out of the exercise, or you get results faster and better because they're able to practice more often. One of the biggest, this is for again, for advanced lifters. One of the biggest, this is for, again, for advanced lifters. One of the biggest limiting factors for people watching right now who really love working out,

I guarantee you is you just can't work out as much as you want. You know that you're limited by your recovery. I mean, there's a lot of fitness fanatics like, gosh, if I could get better results by working out twice as much I would, but then I just over train. In fact, right now, I'm teedering on over training. That's always a limiting factor.

In fact, I mean, look, one of the over training. That's always the limiting factor I mean look One of the number one ways to sell supplements is to say that they do what they help recovery Yeah, they increase recovery. Why do fitness fanatics love things that help boost recovery? They can work out more They know intuitively if I could work out more and recover faster. I'm gonna get better results. Well This strength training tool Allows you to do that. You can work out, people watch right now, literally, whatever you're doing now, you can work out like 30% more with bands and it'll equal about the same amount of damage you're causing out of your body.

But now you're working out more and more often and you get all that extra practice. The next point that I love that it also encourages is it also encourages the isometric portion of the exercise. Squeeze. Because the squeeze at the end, so when you get to that end range with the bands, you kind of pot, it's actually, yeah, it's just like how you talked to it. It is, just like you guys talked about the natural, like resisting the way back, you also have this natural, when you get to the end of the band, you squeeze the muscle out, and

there's so much value in squeezing and contracting in an isometric portion of the band, you squeeze the muscle in it, and there's so much value in squeezing and contracting in an isometric portion of the exercise, and just another area that people neglect to incorporate into their training, and so the band's kind of forces that technique. Yeah, I think of it like if I'm just having an example of an isometric contraction where I'm telling somebody to make a fist,

and they're just squeezing as hard as they can, this is a hard concept a lot of times for people to really understand. I'm trying to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible and like, you know, shuttle them all to this, you know, one action that I'm trying to produce, which is just to squeeze as hard as I can making a fist. Now if I have a rubber band pulling me away from this position, that gives me feedback that I'm fighting against it's way more relatable, it's way less esoteric.

It's not something that I have to conjure up in my mind. This is a real force, it's pulling me. Oh, I have to ground myself. So in terms of teaching it, but also get the same benefits, it actually enhances that muscle recruitment process even more. Look, anybody who's advanced with strength training who understands how to do the right,

how to use a squeeze right at the end of a rep, we'll say this, when you get to the top of your curls, squeeze hard. Now, why do they say that? Cause you're strongest at the end. If I'm curling a dumbbell, it's hard, but at the top, I can hold more weight at the top than I can at this kind of bottom range of motion.

So I have to add more force to make the isometric effective. Well, guess where bands are the hardest at that part. It naturally encourages a harder isometric squeeze. And why does it encourage it? One, the tension's highest at the top, so you're going to get all those muscle fibers. Two, if you don't hold at the top, here's what happens with the bands. Yeah, well, you're going to get this really fast jerky motion. So you're encouraged to lateral pause for a second,

control the negative or fly, control the negative or a lunge or overhead press. You're encouraged to get that isometric squeeze at the strongest part of the rep, which then studies have shown, and bodybuilders have known this for a long time. They've just done it with free weights on their own. This recruits more muscle fibers.

The more muscle fibers you can recruit with an exercise, the more muscle fibers that grow. Which by the way, this is the main, I would say, only value that the, so when you see somebody, when you, and it's always the bodybuilder, dude, or chick, that's wrapping the bands around the hammer strength machine. This is the value of it. It's when they do that row, and they're at the end,

when it's really easy and you just wanna fly back, because the bands are wrapped around the weights, they got it all stuck to the machine, they're having to squeeze and then resist it the way back. That's literally the point of doing that. I don't know if they know that why they're putting it on there, but that's what the value that they're getting from that,

is they're learning how to get the isometric squeeze at the end of the rep because they're getting tension with the band and then it, so they don't just let it go flying back because the bands we're gonna whip it back, they're having to resist on the way back. That is the value of that. That's right.

So next is what I think is gonna apply to most people listening and watching this right now, which is, and we all know this, right? We all know that novelty stimulates muscle growth. So long as it's in the context of strength training, if it's new, your body needs to learn it or it's different for your body, then you're going to see some accelerated gains. This could be a new rep range. This could be a different tempo or rest period

or different exercises. But for a lot of people watching this, I'd say over 90 something percent. I guarantee you, most people have not done an entire training block of just bands. This is strength training. This is pure strength training. There's nothing more novel than what you're about to do

if you do this. If you do the next eight weeks of pure band strength training, it's going to be so novel to your body, you're going to see some newbie gains as you go through this type of training. That's how different it is and how different is on the body. And that novelty effect is very important. This is why we phase our programs. This is why people are encouraged to try different exercises, different movements, because that novelty effect definitely kicks in. We've all experienced that. We'll do a new exercise,

we suck at it, but because we suck at it, it's novel, and then we see gains accelerate very quickly. Well, this is the main reason why I think that this belongs in kind of everybody's exercise, regimen, or libraries, this type of a routine. So you have this novelty. I think all of us are due for some sort of an interruption to what you tend to always go to. I don't care who you are, how long you've been lifting. We all have exercises, ways of training, modalities that you, we tend to gravitate in one of the easiest ways to stimulate growth or more results or decrease in body fat

is training yourself in a novel way. If you've never built an entire eight week routine around just utilizing bands. And I'm all for pairing that when, oh wow, this is perfect. I'm getting ready to go on vacation for two weeks. What a great time to transition into a program like this instead of being all worried about,

oh my God, am I gonna lose gains over this two week vacation or without, oh no, know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna bring my bands with me. I'm gonna switch over to a band routine because I haven't done that anyways, where I did nothing but bands for six to eight weeks. Now I'm gonna do that. Or you fell off for a bit, right?

Like it's something like, I would come back in. You've been training for a while, and I'm just sitting here a couple months where you just like have them in the gym, like you're trying to, you know, build back some momentum. And again, back to the fact that it's less damage and it's something that you can continuously do

and repeat and build back the skill of lifting, you know, like applying this and then, you know, segwaying that right back into the gym. And being like, I love that. Also, you can see it being a great bridge between two parones. Let's say you ran like, Power Lift really hard, one or two rounds of that. So that's you've been going heavy and hard

and pushing PRs with free weights, great way to bridge between two programs like that and not lose gains to go in like that. I can see it. And to continue progressing because the novelty and all the other points. This last one is actually one of my favorite points about band training, which is this. You never, ever find this simultaneously being true. I'm gonna train and try to maximize my gains and simultaneously make my joints feel better and reduce my risk of injury.

Doesn't work that way. If you're pushing your gains, you're almost almost always increasing your risk of injury. If you wanna rehab, you're almost always not chasing maximum gains. Well, here's where it gets really weird. You can push intensity, frequency, volume with bands. You can crank up that dial.

Simultaneously, make your joints feel better and lower your risk of injury. How is this possible? Okay. First of all, everybody knows this. It's harder to hurt yourself with bands than it is with free weights. Here's one of the reasons why. You almost never use a band you can't handle because you can use a free weight you can't handle and hurt yourself with bands that is with free weights. Here's one of the reasons why. You almost never use a band you can't handle

because you can use a free weight you can't handle and hurt yourself, but try using a band you can't handle. You put it down real quick. Because it's immediately, it's gonna be like constantly. Like once you snap out of your hand or whatever you put it down, you end up using appropriate resistance with a band.

And because the resistance curve matches your own resistance curve, you tend to pick the band that works best for your body as you do the entire rep. It's easier on the joints as well because the resistance is in one direction, meaning if I'm doing a squat and I tip to the side a little bit, oh, that's going to hurt. Bands tend to keep you grounded at the point and kind of keep you in position. So, bands, this is the only strength training tool I can think of where I could take somebody and say, we're gonna simultaneously get you to push your gains.

And at the end of this, your joints are gonna feel better than they did before. That almost never happens. Super unique. Do you think there's some magic there too with the way it creates instability at the in range, which is like, it encourages that squeeze? Yeah, because it's different than, again, free weights. So that's where it's really easy at the in range, which is like, encourages that squeeze. Yeah, because it's different than, again, free weights.

So that's where it's really easy at the end, like. Get loose. Yeah. And so you can get away with kind of being loosened there where you have to really be stable. You have that isometric contraction. You have that squeeze at the in ranges of exercises, which is not typical.

You won't be incomparable to, like, if, say, I'm doing an overhead carry, I'm isometrically contracting, it doesn't let me relax at all, as I'm doing. And for most people that have actually applied that in their training and then went back to overhead pressing, it made them so much stronger. Yes, yes. Again, back to the other points, right?

Encourage is excellent form, constant tension, controlled negative. Like all those things contribute to healthier joints, lower risk of injury. But again, I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier. There's almost no strength training tool that allows you to push your body and simultaneously make your joints feel better.

So one of the benefits of doing a block of band training is you'll get stronger, you'll build more muscle, and then when you go back to free weights, you're like, wow, I feel better. I feel looser. My joints feel better. Very, very unique, very special trait that bands possess. Now, look, this is what we did, right?

So this is a conversation we had months ago. We were talking about how band training has been relegated to beginners and convenience and how a lot of advanced people were missing out on a benefits. So Justin's like, I'm going to write a band workout for people who really want to go after it. This, by the way, is the, it's an all bands maps workout. It's also the only maps program that's every single day.

You are working out hard every single day because you can with bands like we explained earlier. Now this is the launch of this new program. So anytime we do a launch, we include some stuff. So here's some of stuff that we included. First off, the price is going to be discounted. So it's going to retail for $97, but because it's launching now, you get it for $67. We also created two ebooks unique that we're going to give away for free with this program that we're going to sell later on. One of them is the ultimate bodyweight training guide. So this is an entire ebook on some of the best bodyweight exercises you could do.

So you want to include some bodyweight exercises. There you go. The second book, this one people are really excited about, is a cookbook. This is Quick Meals. A beautiful cookbook. Yeah. Quick meals for health and fitness. So these are meals you can cook relatively quickly that are healthy. There's gluten free options in there. There's some vegan options in there as well. Um, and so it's the first cookbook that we put together here at Mind Pump. So if you enroll during this launch period, you get $30 off the retail price. So for $67 you get maps, bands. This is a

two-faced eight-week program. It's a two-month block of only band training. Again, it's an advanced workout. And then what's thrown in are those two e-books, ultimate bodyweight training and quick meals. If you want to sign up, you got to go to mapsbands.com. And then the code is bands30. Bands30 gives you the discount plus the free e-books. And of course, it comes with the 30-day money back guarantee like all of our programs. Also, you can find us all on Instagram.

So Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound, animal, and just as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. you