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Posted January 28, 2012 by Blake Kassel in Exercises, Random Thoughts

Wow, I just followed the trail of one of the blog conversations and there are a lot of varying opinions. - Let me set the record straight on a few issues or comments:

Comment: Ashanti and I have not gained muscle
Response: If you do not see muscle gain on Ashantis' body I am shocked. There are multiple times when we are shooting a show that I have to do a double take when I am looking at him because his muscles have grown to such a degree. I do a double take because I can't believe that is him. He has gained a great deal of muscle irregardless of the fact that he eats about 1 good meal a day. How about me? I have gained a ton of muscle. I actually look okay as I gain fat because distribute it pretty well, overall I just end up looking BIG. When I started Chiseled 2 years ago I had lost a tremendous amount of muscle, however my muscles still looked big due to the fat. Since we began I have lost a lot of fat and gained muscle. My comment the other day about looking small is common for bodybuilders as they "cut down" for a show. That is basically what I am doing now. I am looking to lose the tire around my waist once and for all. So, now that the fat has left most of my body (except for my midsection) certain body parts DO look smaller. However, when I get pumped up during the workouts that ALL changes. All will be revealed very soon

Comment: The Jury is still out on if you can gain muscle with bands
Response: Poppycock! We have proven here that muscle gain with bands is ABSOLUTELY possible. For the detractors, they do NOT understand this program. The show is not called BIG, it is called CHISELED. Chiseled refers to looking the way that 90% of the guys out there want to look - Lean, muscular, fit and healthy. If all we did month after month was periodization, we would get bigger and bigger with bands. HOWEVER that is not what we are doing here and I'm not sure how many viewers we would have LOL. This is a lifestyle. If you want to look and FEEL better than you ever have then this is for you. We do series with cardio acceleration, tabata, full body workouts. These are not necessarily muscle building series but they get our bodies incredibly fit. If you are looking to get big and bulky, Chiseled is probably not for you and there is nothing wrong with that.

Will we add a strictly muscle building show at some time in the future, for those few that want it? Maybe - who knows. For now I will continue to bring Chiseled workout partners new and incredible workouts every month. I have become addicted to the type of training that we do here. The bottom line: I am in the best shape of my life and I will NEVER go back.

Keep hitting it hard and stay focused. Remember, obstacles are the things that we see when we take our eyes off of the road to our goals.

Weights vs Bodylastics

Posted January 15, 2012 by fergodayol in Exercises, Random Thoughts

I'm a surgeon, working in bariatrics (doing surgery to obese people so they can be healthier loosing weight they can't loose by there own), so I work long ours, I'm 44 years old (tomorrow 45), 3 children, wife, and overweight, I've been riding a bycicle the last 3 years and it has really helped to keep some weight off and of course, gain some resistance and cardio fitness, anyway I still weigh too much.

I did weight lifting for many years, younger years, of course had the best body of my life, anyway, now it is impossible for me to go to a gym for hours, even less go to some classes or have a trainer, it is impossible to fit my schedule to anybody else, so I studied different possibilities to reach a goal of having more muscle and burning more calories. Dumbells looked great but they are expensive, and heavy, and dangerous in a house full of kids, bought a Pilates bed sold in as seen on tv, piece of crap, cheap, not well built, not suitable to my size, probably a woman body can fit there, then I thought about bands.

The search in google got me to bodylastics, for the price I did pay to see.

Did series 16 with Blake and Ashanti, my body grew faster than I expected and got more muscle in less time, who would imagine I could do a whole workout in less than 45 minutes?, so I'm now starting series 17, completely different to my first month, extraordinary exercises, fun, difficult, challenging...

But a few things amazed me, my lower back is not hurting me anymore, even having lumbar disk hernias diagnosed when my time lifting weights, now I do the whole back routine (actually worried about my back and thinking would not probably be able to walk straight again), it didn't happend, my back feels great and is not hurting even after the back and shoulders workout..., also my left shoulder used to hurt every week, since I started with the tubes it doesn't hurt anymore.

Lifting weight requires to lift the heavy plates, put them in the machine or bar where you want to exercise, then do the exercise and put the weight somewhere else, in those movements I used to hurt myself, lifting the plate,mounting into the bar, too much for my back, with the bands is no lifting unless you are working.

In small words, so long lifting weights, I'm keeping the bands.

Looking forward to next months of workout.

Thank you bodylastics, the idea of liveexercise.com is brilliant.

More kudos for using bodylastics

Posted January 12, 2012 by Dan StayStrong in Exercise and Nutrition Research articles

I've been reading the transcript of this very interesting conversation between to physicians, both of whom are into exercising and exercise science.

Here is the link to the transcript.It is 36 pages long but very easy to read and lots of food for thought. In fact, I am seriously thinking of modifying my workout routines from three sets to single sets but high intensity i.e. fast while ensuring there is enough tension to bring each repetition to fatigue. If I can finish my workout in 30 minutes, then I'll be happy. If I do three sets, as per LiveExercise videos, it takes me a full hour. I don't have that time!!

And here is the link to the YouTube video. But there is no video of this interview, just the voice. It's ok if you learn best by listening than reading. So, you have two choices here ;-)

It's worth your time reading/listening to this, if you take your health and fitness seriously, and want to go about it in an effective way.

Another frustrating 'strength legs day' with bodylastic

Posted December 8, 2011 by Georges Washington in Exercises

Because I aim to improve my strength, not just the number of reps I can do at the same resistance, my plan was to include 4 sets of 5, slow, controlled back squats in my programme today and I thought I would try to use bands only again since I didn't find the time to build a special barbell.

Big mistake, it didn't go well.

I've mentioned some of the problems, we, tall people wanting to work on strength, are facing:
- the bands put way too much pressure on shoulder joints and wrists when we're working with a few oranges.
- it's nearly impossible to keep the feet apart. There is no weight holding us down, but bands pulling inward and upwards
- arms get bruises and burn marks from the clipping system
- we get frustrated because the legs are not working hard enough despite our arms and shoulder taking a beating

I have tried the alternative way of using a door anchor in the past, but because I have to grab lots of bands quite close to the anchor (in order to get some resistance from the start), the hands sort of give in before the legs do and it also prevents me from focusing solely on my legs.

So, yes, it's my fault for insisting, but I don't know what to replace back squats with. I'm already doing one legged squats every other week and it doesn't work the body the same way. I guess I'm going to have to try and build that special barbell asap if I want to be able to make progress.

The other problem I'm having is boredom...
I want to be able to do supersets which attack the muscles from different angles, but I can't find enough exercises to do with bands. I've started a thread to get more input from people with more experience, but I didn't get any suggestions.
I tried to include alternating lunges into my programme again today, but switching the foot that holds the band after each rep is just too awkward and allows for too much rest.

So at the end of the workout, I felt like I had wasted one session. It's not the end of the world, but it's definitely frustrating when you're doing everything else right in order to try and achieve your goal.

Elastic Resistance vs. Free Weights

Posted October 26, 2011 by Allen Wynn in Exercises, Resistance Band Training

http://www.bodylastics.com/articles/elastic_resistance_vs_free_weights/

An article was posted here recently in which the author, who has no background in exercise science, offered his "opinions" on the disadvantages of resistance bands. This person did not include a single reference to any research performed to support his conclusions. One of his conclusions/opinions was that "Resistance band exercises are not versatile enough to allow for the kinds of stressors required to grow huge muscles." I call BS on that ignorant comment, and the attached article from Dr. Jim Stoppani, which many of us have read, directly contradicts this person's conclusions. And Dr. Stoppani includes references to research performed to support his conclusions.

I like Dr. Stoppani's summary at the end of the article:

The research performed on elastic resistance suggests that not only does elastic resistance offer similar benefits to free-weight resistance, but it actually has several benefits that outweigh (pun intended) those of free weights. This means that a program using elastic tubing resistance can provide similar benefits to a program that uses free-weight resistance, such as increased muscle strength, increase muscle tone and size and decreased body fat. In addition, a program that uses elastic tubing resistance can also provide benefits that are not offered by free-weight resistance programs, such as more functional strength, better injury prevention, greater ability to change muscle emphasis during exercises, greater muscle power development and easier use.