resistance bands versus dumbbells

It's way, way easier to do high-rep, low-weight exercises with resistance bands than with dumbbells. I'm still pretty weak, so my 10-kilogram dumbbells are a bit ponderous to move around. With resistance bands, I'm always worried about them snapping at some point, so I try to avoid stringing them around corners and other hard edges, usually looping them under my feet or around a doorknob. 

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd buy several resistance-band wall hooks and install them at ankle level, chest or waist level, and slightly above head level. That would really help. As things stand, I improvise, but I've already started to form a fixed routine.

One solution I've stumbled upon is to use the dumbbells for the first set of ten or twenty reps of whatever exercise I'm doing, the idea being that I'll eventually increase the proportion of dumbbell reps and eventually migrate away from the resistance bands completely.

Resistance bands are best used when they start off a bit tense. If you hook them to a door and then stand too close to the door, there'll be little to no tension, so you have to stand back far enough for the bands to become a little tense before you start to exercise. As you go through the range of motion for a given exercise, the motion always begins super-easily, then becomes moderately difficult only during the final 10% of the movement you're performing. My solution is therefore to hold the fully extended position for a fraction of a second longer so my muscles actually feel a bit of strain. I have no illusions that resistance-band work will lead me to become The Hulk, but the bands feel like a healthy start, and hopefully, as I get stronger, I will indeed be able to work out more with the dumbbells.

A typical MWF routine (see my routine chart here; you may need to email me for permission to see the document) sees me doing chest press, lateral raises, and biceps curls, 100 reps each. 

For the chest press, it's entirely resistance bands right now, and I feel a bit silly for setting my program at 20 sets of 5 reps each, so what I'm really doing is 50 reps, 1-minute rest, then another 50 reps. Again, with the bands, this is fairly easy. I loop the band around my bathroom doorknob, face away from the doorknob at a reasonable distance, then do the chest-press motion. 50, rest, 50. 

For the lateral raises, I sit on the edge of my bed and loop the resistance band under my feet, which are about shoulder width apart, then do the raises. 50, rest, 50. I can't do lateral raises that well with the dumbbells yet; I still need to build up my strength. I'll get there eventually.

For the biceps curls, I sit on the edge of my bed, loop the resistance band under my feet, and do seated curls that way. I also do them standing. I might start the curls by doing 10 reps with the dumbbells first, then do the remaining 90 reps with the band. Eventually, it'll be 20 reps with the dumbbells, then 30, and so on.

For my TRS schedule (that's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, for those of you who've never seen "Thursday" abbreviated with an "R"—I guess because "Thursday" has an "r" in it), I do lat/triceps pulldowns, upright rows, and core work with leg raises. Saturday was already a hard day, but with this new routine, it's now even harder.

For the lat/triceps pulldown, I again use the bathroom doorknob as the anchor point for my band. I start with my arms bent 90 degrees in front of me, and I just... pull down. Again, it's 50, rest, 50. This motion, to the extent that it involves the triceps, is part of the motion for a pushup (which itself is not much different from a punching motion), and I'm still working toward doing legitimate pushups. Right now, though, using the resistance bands is a better option than dumbbells because of my shoulder. I hope one day soon not to be able to use my shoulder as an excuse for not progressing, but I may have to see an orthopede if there's no noticeable healing over the next month or so.

For upright rows, I do 20 reps with the dumbbells first, then the remaining 80 reps with the band. This is the most difficult exercise for me, and I realized I'd been doing upright rows wrong when I watched some videos on proper form. Here as well, I'll eventually start doing more reps with the dumbbells.

The core work I do involves lying on my bed (nice) and doing knee and/or leg raises. With a knee raise, I'm simply holding my legs together and stretched out, then bending my legs and bringing my knees close to my chest, raising my hips slightly as the knees reach the chest, thereby creating a bit of a "crunch" motion. The leg raise, which is slightly harder, entails keeping the legs fully extended while raising them from near-horizontal (the legs never touch the bed) to vertical. I do 3 sets of 30 reps, lazily resting two minutes between sets. (Some weightlifters do what are called "supersets," in which they blow through each set with no intervening rest between sets. I can't do that.)

So that's pretty much my new routine, except for the core work, which I've been doing since June. The routine allows me to burn some extra calories, especially with the addition of Saturday, and it's hopefully making me a bit stronger. Larger muscles = faster metabolism as your body burns more energy even when it's just sitting there. I have no plans to become ripped, but looking like Harrison Ford in his prime might be nice. Overall, resistance bands are great for a weakling like me. They're a jumping-off point until I'm strong enough to switch entirely to dumbbells. And both dumbbells and bands are good for those of us who are loath to attend a gym, especially in these pestilential times.