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A Muscle’s Response to Isometric Training Using Speed Bands

In the article titled How to Use Resistance Bands for Speed! I touched upon what happens to your muscles during an isometric contraction. In this article, I want to give you a more thorough, physiological explanation of a muscle response to isometric training using speed bands.  So, let’s recap just a bit, first.

You’ll recall that during an isometric contraction, you are holding the speed band in a fixed position.  If the resistance is high enough in the band, your muscles will wear down fairly quickly, such as just after a few seconds.  This causes them to eventually tremble as they fight to maintain this position.

Two Changes Take Place With the Resistance Band

When muscles shake while attempting to hold the resistance band steady, the length of the band changes as well as the direction in which it pulls you.  These changes, however small, are ongoing and continuous resulting in a total disruption of the isometric contraction you are trying to maintain.

Sometimes the changes in the band will cause the resistance in them to decrease.  When this happens, an immediate over-stimulation of the muscle fibers occurs to help make up for it.  Other times, the changes in the band will cause the resistance in them to increase.  When this happens, an immediate understimulation of the muscle fibers occurs to help lighten it up a bit.

These back and forth changes are constantly being perceived by stretch receptors in your muscles and tendons and it causes them to instantly adjust the force needed to hold the band in a steady position.

These adjustments in muscle contractions occur at an incredibly high rate. The physiological effects of this within the muscles and tendons is that all of its proprioceptors and stretch receptors within them begin to fire in completely unique and different patterns.

Again, the band’s resistance changes based on the length when it is stretched, even if just millimeters, and the resistance also changes based on the angle in which it is attached even within a degree; and, because it always pulls back toward its attachment, it doesn’t always act straight down to the ground like the weight, which relies on gravity.

This means that the direction of force as well as the amount of force will continuously change, even with very small movements of the muscles holding the band, forcing the muscle to learn to quickly react and adjust to these changing forces.

So now what you have to deal with is a multidimensional force acting on your muscles.  Any tiny change in muscle movement, whether it’s slightly up or down, slightly to the left or right or any combination of these instantaneously alters the amount of resistance given back by the band, and it alters it’s direction of force as well.

The proprioceptors in your muscles and tendons constantly perceive these changes in force and direction and cause the muscles to respond entirely differently than with any other training routine.

More Complete and Mature Muscle Development

This is how the resistance band with an isometric contraction gives your muscles a more complete and mature development in a way that cannot be attained using weights or any other training technique.

This is why athletes using this type of muscle training are quickly and dramatically improving in speed and precision in all their sports skills.

In addition to all of this, here are three additional reasons athletes are improving their athleticism by using the resistance band with an isometric contraction:

First, because each recruitment pattern of the muscle fibers holding the resistance band is now new for your muscles, the forces supplied by the band will instantly expose your muscle’s weaknesses and lack of coordination that went undetected with other routines.

This causes your muscles and nerves to create new neuro-pathways, or muscle memory, within the muscle and causing it to immediately become t stronger and with more speed, quickness and coordination than ever before.

Second, when you train the way we show you in our training manuals, the mass and weight of the muscle does not significantly increase. If it did, this extra weight on your body could potentially offset the gains in speed.

Whenever you are able to increase muscles’ strength, speed, quickness and coordination without adding any additional body weight, your speed and athletic performance will automatically increase.

Third, Imagine applying this strategy in not only conventional movements and positions, as in the biceps curl, but also in ways and body positions you may have never thought of before or perhaps were prevented from doing because of fear of injury from weights.

When you use the unconventional positioning, which are safe and easy to do with bands, you will immediately expose weaknesses in your muscles and then eliminate these weaknesses by developing strength and quickness in those positions, leading to an even more improved athletic performance.

This is why, if you have read through some of our testimonials, athletes are reporting back to us with what sounds like crazy, hard-to-believe increases in their running speed, jumping ability, kicking distance, swing speeds, serving speed, etc., after just a a few days of training, but this is exactly the kind of results we expect to get.

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