What is a strength curve? A strength curve is the difficulty
of an exercise throughout the range of motion; an ascending strength curve
refers to an exercise which gets harder as you extend, whereas a descending
strength curve becomes easier as you reach flexion. For example, a bench press
or squat is hardest at the bottom, no-one ever gets stapled at the top. This is
a descending strength curve.
Accommodating resistance refers to resistance which changes throughout the exercise. Using free weights, the weight stays constant, even if the difficulty changes. Adding Power Bands to a movement increases the resistance the further the trainee moves from the anchor point.
This is applicable to every athlete and trainer who has stepped into a gym, as it has enormous ramifications for several widely-desired athletic qualities: strength, power, speed and muscle size.
Strength and Power
Force equals mass x speed. Increasing either the mass you can lift or the speed you can lift it without diminishing the other means more strength. As you lift, you must inevitably slow down in preparation for lockout. Picture a bench press; if you don’t slow down you will eventually throw the Barbell out of your hands. By adding Power Bands, the exercise becomes harder the further you press. Although the Barbell is slowing down or moving at a constant speed, you must apply more and more force to keep the Barbell moving. When going back to a Barbell without Power Bands, your nervous system has been trained to continue to accelerate throughout the range of motion, making movement more explosive. An increase in speed without a decrease in the ability lift mass means more force, and thus, more strength and power. Phentermine online http://www.pharmacynewbritain.com/phentermine/
Increasing Muscle Size
Power Bands are most effective for increasing muscle size by adjusting the strength curve to be even; or equally hard throughout the movement.
Muscles hypertrophy occurs in response to mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. This is an article in and of itself, but the summary comes down to getting stronger, getting a pump and breaking down muscle.
I’ve explained how Power Bands increase one’s strength above; Power Bands also contribute to tension when the resistance is adjusted to be as even as possible. This will take the lifter closer to true failure at the end of a set, rather than being unable to complete only the hardest part of the lift. This will also increase time under effective tension. Pausing between reps in order to rest will obviously impact a time under tension, but let’s think about during the exercise; during a squat the quads and hips are not working as hard at the top despite being under tension. If we increase that tension without sacrificing tension at the bottom, in an ideal world the muscle is working as hard as it can throughout the range of motion. Nizagara pills http://www.wolfesimonmedicalassociates.com/nizagara/
Without Power Bands, we commonly see this when people perform “21’s” or partial reps. By performing the hardest part of the rep first to exhaustion, the muscle is still able to complete the movement when performing the easiest part. So using the squat as an example, reps could be done from the bottom to halfway up only; and then eventually from halfway up to the top (like a half squat).
Another positive for the use of Power Bands is that they increase the eccentric load (unlike chains) in order to return to their anchor point. All of your bases are covered in regards to mechanisms of hypertrophy. A word of warning though, is that the increased eccentric load is harder to recover from than traditional resistance exercise; you may find the need to cycle the Power Bands on and off (periodising your training) or ensure your recovery protocol is on point.
Other Applications for Strength Curves
Power Bands can be used to assist a movement as well as resisting it. For example, Power Bands can be attached to the top of a rack and used for squats. The further the Power Band is stretched on the way down, the more weight it takes off the Barbell. This would result in a decreased eccentric load, and is applicable for active recovery.
Partials can also be used to acclimate an athlete to a new, heavy-weight. This is most applicable for
Summary
Exercises are not uniform in their degree of difficulty across the movement. Manipulating this difficulty can improve one’s performance with this associated movement. Power Bands are a practical and effective method of achieving this.