Bands

In calisthenics, bands are your best friends. They can help you for your warmup, improve your understanding of skills, get you through a combo, make a drop set...Here we develop the different types of bands, the main ways to use them, how to place them, as well as their advantages and drawbacks.

## Different bands for different usages

There are two main types of bands: closed and open ones. The difference is pretty obvious: there is a "hole" in the closed band.

You mainly use open bands for warmup: they're easy to attach to a surface (pole, high bar) and allow you to do complex arm movements (circles for example), as well as skill simulations, without discomfort. However you can't use them to mimic the bodyweight position of a skill.

You can use close bands for warmup too, but they're less comfortable. Their main advantage is that they can be placed on a high bar and have a placement that stretches all the way to the ground: you can enter in the band and profit from its support while doing exercises. These bands are therefore great for mimicking skills.

## How to use bands?

### Warming up

There's a plethora of different warm up exercises that use a band. For example:

-floor dislocates: lay on the floor, stomach down, and with the band in your hands, inlocate and dislocate your arms, without ever touching the floor with them.

- skill simulation: attach the band to an anchor point at about waist line level, and simulate the skill with one arm (or both depending on which type of band you are using).

\_ rotatur cuff warm up: face pulls, banded external rotations...Also an interesting one where you hold the band in your arms flexed, hands supinated, and externally rotate to a maximum. Pick the ones you prefer.

- Arm circles: place the band on a high anchor point, and do arm circles in every way, both facing the point, and back to the point.

### Mimicking a skill

In calisthenics, this is for sure the main purpose of close bands. It can be used for pretty much any strength skill, but they're to no avail in handstand.

The tension resistance of different bands is well standardized between different brands. We'll call the 25 lbs band the heavy band, the 15 lbs one the light, and the 5 lbs one the ultra-light band (or psychological band, as being able to do an element in this rep would theoretically mean you can do it without it, and just have to break the mental barrier).

If you can't do a skill without a heavier band, you should not train it yet. The reason for it being, no matter how you place your band, it changes the exercise. If it's not placed under your center of gravity, it changes the mechanics, and in all cases, it changes the constraints on your core muscle.

For band placement: it's more optimal to place it at the level of your center of gravity. That way your arms are in the desired angle for the skill, and the position is not modified. It simply changes the torque applied to your body. Keep in mind that:

- although most people have their center of gravity located between their navel and their buttocks, yours can slighlty change for this position.

- placing the band perfectly is time consuming and is too little of a detail. Moreover, it can be difficult in some exercises to ideally place the band, or it may slip.

Try to place the band at your waist line for anterior skills, and on your buttocks for posterior skills.

When it comes to training itself, they're several usages to the bands.

You can do reps (or holds) of a skill you want to achieve in a band, and try to progress them overtime, eventually going to a lighter band. The rule of thumb to keep in mind is: being able to do 8s of a hold in a band (or 3 reps of a dynamic movement), you can progress to the lighter band.

You can also use bands to improve your form and body activation in your current skills (usually the light or psychological band), or do long combos (and eventually progress to remove the band).

### Banded exercises

Some movement patterns go hand in hand with the usage of bands: the descending strength curve of a pattern usually make them reliable. For example: banded external rotations, kick backs, bicep curls, front raises.

### Drop set

This apply both to basics and skills training. Doing an exercise bodyweight first, and when you reach your limit, get a few more reps in the light band, then in the heavy band...You can also do it the reverse way: do an exercise in bands, and once you can't do it anymore, use a lighter band, and so on.

## Band placement

This section will mainly cover the mimicking of skills.

### Lever skills

We already mentioned how crucial it is to place the band at the level of your center of gravity. Let's dive more in the topic.

#### Leverage and progressions

You can use bands on your current progressions. The issue being that the progression already modify the center of gravity of your body (it's their main purpose). Therefore, placing the band at your waist line will modify the mechanics of the exercise (usually making you lean too much forward, and giving a counterforce oriented on the side).

Two alternatives appear:

- finding your new center of gravity in the progression and placing the band here. For this, no need to be able to hold the skill: record yourself and perform an easy skill in the desired shape, for example elbow lever, and place the band at the same level as your hands.

- training the full shape in the bands. As it is the ultimate goal, it makes totally sense, and trains you more specifically for the final movement.

#### Anchor point

We always want the band to have a vertical action. Indeed, a horizontal action would change the mechanics of the skill.

Therefore, you will always want your hands to be right below the band anchor point, so the band is vertically stretched. Furthermore, this position will stretch the band less (and make the exercise harder!)

The height of the anchor point will also stretch the band more or less, and allows to measure progression. A smart way to scale the anchor point is attaching the band to a ring, and changing the ring height over time.

#### Using a band on single bar skills

Let's say you want to use your bands on single bar skills (such as hefesto, or frontlever touch). It is perfectly possible to do so, by placing the band under your hands and tightening it more or less. Under you, you can have one or two layer of bands (single or double wrap). That way, your hands become the band anchor point. However, depending on the skill, it may be more or less efficient.

- The frontlever pull up pattern being an ascending curve, and the bands giving every dynamic exercise another ascending curve, banded frontlever pull ups will feel very easy at the beginning, but very hard at the end. It's better to use bands to improve the touch directly, or do half ROM movements.

- Usage of bands changes the mechanics of the SAT slightly this way. It adds a side force on both hands, that in theory would cancel each other, but in practice can make the placement complicated, and the band slip. Moreover, the force is always more side-oriented (not vertically oriented), so ironically, the new force to resist is greater to the one removed. However, it trains well for the SAT cue of pulling towards the back and the sides. Same goes for the SAT back lever.

### Vertical skills

The band usage will be different depending on the skill.

- for iron cross movements, the most optimal band placement is placing it at the level of your calves, and performing the skill in a half-lay position (legs bent at 90°, hips straight)

- for pull ups and one arm pull ups, you can place the band under your feet to mimic the movement at best. For the OAPU, you should grab the bar right at the band level. For the OAPU specifically, it's possible to train the skill with the assisting arm holding the band (and feet not in it).

- for impossible dips, there is no ideal placement of the band. It's better to use an anchor point over you (a bar over your training place).

### Changing lever skills

In such skills, you change the direction of your body (eg. Pineda, Carmona, planche press...), usually through one or several lever and vertical positions.

For these skill, it's better to decompose the movement in the different phases. The usual band placement will be around your shoulders, although it will change the mechanics of the movement.

You will mainly have to experiment. Here is an example of band usage for Azarian training.

## Advantages and drawbacks

Some advantages of bands are:

- they're fun: they mimic the final position, you feel more able to do these cray feats of strength.

- they're easily scalable: applying the rule of thumb explained earlier, or using the ring as scale. Progression is easy to foresee.

- they're pretty cheap: you can buy a whole set of bands for $15.

But as any training method, they have their drawbacks.

- light close bands easily break. You can still use them as open bands though.

- all bands becomes more and more stretched with time, and apply less pressure. This can be an advantage (using a streth heavy band between heavy and light for progressive overload) as well as a drawback (having to buy a new band)

- they require some expertise to place, can sometimes be hard to get out of and in, and in extreme but painful cases, will smash your genitals.