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My first P90X Shoulders & Arms workout was the first time I had ever used resistance bands for a complete workout.

July 6, 2007

Day 3: Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X

When I woke up this morning, my legs where a little sore from yesterday’s work out and my chest & back had recovered, which worked out well since I was doing shoulders & arms today.

This workout was considerably more sophisticated than the Chest & Back workout, which consists mostly of pull-ups and push-ups. This workout had me really using a variety of resistance bands in a variety of ways and it took some getting used to.

The only time I’ve ever worked with resistance bands before, I was using light bands for physical therapy, not as a substitution for heavy dumbbells. At present, it doesn’t make much sense for me to invest in a set of dumbbells, especially considering how cheap the resistance bands are, as I am moving around a lot between Santa Fe, NM and Concord, MA. I got the complete kit of B-lines Bands (10 in all) from Million Dollar Body for $80, which is pretty economical considering in would cost hundreds of dollars to get the dumbbell equivalent.

I don’t want to gripe about them too much at present, as I think I am ultimately going to like them very much. However, I do wonder if they are as effective as dumbbells. It has been suggested to me that, for certain exercises, they are actually more effective than dumbbells, which makes perfect sense. For, with the bands, unlike dumbbells, the level of resistance increases as you stretch them. However, this characteristic obviously renders the bands less effective in certain exercises as well.

I think most of my frustration with them today can be chalked up to inexperience. I had difficulty determining which one to use for which exercise and how big of a loop to use on some of the exercises.

Also, I wish the complete kit came with more sets of handles. It only comes with three. So you need to transfer the handles between exercises if you use more than three bands. For the lighter bands, this isn’t that big of a deal. However, this is rather difficult to do with the heavier bands, at least for someone who is inexperienced (and weak) like me. I didn’t end up transferring any of the handles today, but I did struggle to get the handles on the green band.

Anyway, here’s my Shoulders & Arms stats:

• Alternating Shoulder Presses: 10, 10 orange
• In & Out Bicep Curls: 16, 16 orange
• Two-Arm Tricep Kickbacks: 10, 10 magenta
• Deep Swimmer’s Presses: 10 orange, 6 green
• Full Supination Concentration Curls: 11, 12 green
• Chair Dips: 25, 25 bent legs
• Upright Rows: 15, 15 magenta
• Static Arm Curls: 16 orange, 16 green
• Flip-Grip Twist Tricep Kickbacks: 10, 8 magenta
• Two-Angle Shoulder Flys: 10, 10 orange
• Crouching Cohen Curls: 10, 16 magenta
• Lying-Down Tricep Extensions: 12, 16 magenta
• In & Out Straight-Arm Shoulder Flys: 16, 12 magenta
• Congdon Curls: 10, 10 green
• Side Tri-Rises: 10/10, 8/8

I’ve been using the B-lines Bands for seven weeks now and am much more comfortable with them. Bottom line: They work! I’ll have more to say about this in the future. For now, let me just say that I definitely recommend B-lines Bands as an inexpensive and mobile alternative to dumbbells.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Exercise, P90X, Ripped. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.