band tension question

[DOM]

Roughly how much band tension at top and bottom am I getting on my bench press when I put a miniband on each side underneath a heavy dumbell and then loop both ends of it over the bar? So that's one mini, doubled up on itself, on each side. Anybody know?

 

[Deciever1]

i believe its around 80-100 at the top...40-50 at the bottom.

 

[Stapled to the Floor]

so when calculating total weight for percentages should we use the 80-100lb??????

 

[DOM]

Thanks Deceiver, that's about what I was thinking.

Stapledtothefloor -- It depends on how you set up your bands. If you anchor them normally, and then loop them around the bar until you have very little or zero tension at the bottom, then there is about 25 lbs tension at the top. I was just curious about the doubling up because I'm going to experiment with using more band tension on bench days. I had been using about 10-15% tension (measured at the top), but in Halbert's article in last months monstermuscle, he said he's had success going as high as 40% I think he said. Anyway, I wanted to try this out, but the only bands I have are minis -- so I need a way to set them up to get that kind of tension.

 

[Stapled to the Floor]

Dom

thats what I was thinking of doing also..

so 40% of the calcuated weight should be band tension right?/

So lets say for instance (ease of numbers) I was using 50 % of 1rm on DE bench days and my max was 200 lb...So I would use 100 lbs of resistance...40 lbs of that being band tension and 60 lbs being bar weight???

 

[DOM]

Stapled

Yeah, that's what he means. Halbert is obviously an exceptional bencher though -- with way more experience with band work than us. So, I'm gonna stay in the 20-30% range for a while and see how that works before I go up to 40%.

For speed day today I did 125 lbs bar weight plus 50 lbs band tension at the top. That comes out to 28-29% band tension, and I usually use about only 15% bands. This extra tension went insanely fast for me -- 2 seconds instead of the normal 3 seconds per set I'd get with straight weight. So I'm not going to make the jump to 40% yet. Gonna adjust for a while.

 

[Stapled to the Floor]

Dom,

sounds solid.. I will follow your lead.. keep posted on results..
thanks