We'll continue with exercise bands. Since I set up my home gym, I make heavy use of exercise bands. I have them downstairs in the basement and upstairs hanging on my chin up bar.
These are the ones I bought back in 2020. I use them 3 to 4 times a week and have never had a problem. In fact, I bought 2 sets.
They vary from light to heavy and you adjust the tension both by where you grab the band and how far away you stand. The further away, the more tension. You can put bands together for extra weight as well.
There are plenty of good exercise bands out there.
To perform the rear delt fly, bend your legs slightly. Again, adjust the tension by stepping away from or towards the anchor point. Slowly pull the band towards you with your arms going straight out to your side. Return and repeat.
Don't rush these. I sometimes do 3 sets of 8 reps with heavy tension, or, at times, I'll start with heavy tension and do as many reps as I can, then gradually step forward and continue until I can't do anymore.
I got my suspension training setup this past summer. My home gym now consists of exercise bands, kettle bells, weights and the TRX type system. I did not get the name brand TRX because it is pretty pricy. I got a set for about half the cost, and it is solid!
I do have a pull up bar and a heavy bag, but we'll discuss that in the future.
I'm guessing maybe 60% of my workouts now consist of suspension training. I'm getting up there in age and this gives me a super tension workout plus works the core. Not to mention the stretch benefits.
This is one of my favorite triceps exercises. I do them standing but you can do them kneeling as shown, especially if you can't get the band anchored high enough. I strap it around my chin up bar. By the way, this is excellent using the weight rack at the gym.
You want to try to keep tension on the triceps throughout the exercise. You'll want tension on the triceps from the start so grab the band and pull to starting position level with your chest. Now make an effort to pull your shoulders back so they are not rounded and you're concentrating on using the triceps and not getting help from the shoulders.
Pull the strap down and turn your palms to the front at the bottom. You can skip that part if you're just learning these but doing them during the exercise makes the biceps and the triceps pop. The nice part about this is you keep tension on your muscles throughout the movement.
You vary the tension by grabbing the band higher for more tension and lower for less. The nice thing is you can grab the band high to begin and, when you can't push down anymore, you raise your grip and knock out the rest of your reps.
This exercise will make the outside muscle of the triceps pop and that looks pretty impressive.
I mentioned in another article that I bought a Quest 2 virtual reality headset and am not using it for my cardio workouts. Playing a game while getting in your cardio seems too good to be true but it's true.
I just came across a game called Pistol Whip. I kept hearing about it and seeing it when I'd watch YouTube videos on using the Quest 2 for fitness. But the price was too high, as far as I was concerned. Luckily Oculus ran a 1 day special and I grabbed it.
Wow!! Talk about having a blast and still getting in a workout. This is off the charts. Here's a video for you to check out that shows one of the western themes. Watch it and then read on.
There are 22 or so movie style scenes where you can play. You're emerged into the action and bullets fly all around you. The western scene is my favorite but there are gangster scenes, graveyard scenes, and more. I'll use the western to describe the workout.
You're on a moving belt that takes you through the town. Bad guys pop up in front of you, off to the side, above you and behind you if you didn't shoot them. You have to stay alert and shoot them before they shoot you. The cardio aspect?
You see the bullets coming at you in slow motion. You have to squat down and duck them or move left or right or even do a Matrix style lean. There are obstacles in front of you that you have to avoid. You shoot at dynamite to kill a number of bad guys at once. I cheat and put the mode on No Fail so that I don't die and have to start over. That would hinder my workout. But you hear a zing in the ear when you get hit. I'm getting a little better and not getting zinged as much.
I can't describe the way you feel after the game ends. The game is intense, and you feel yourself untensing after. My breathing is up and the heartrate kicks up during the game. After my first 20-minute session I went downstairs, and my lets were feeling sore after a while. I played for the first time on a Saturday when I take the weekend off from exercise. I didn't realize until I was done that I was getting one heck of a workout. If you try this, please comment. I'd like to hear what others think about Pistol Whip as a fitness game.
By the way, it's called Pistol Whip because if you avoid the bullets and get close to a bad guy, you kill him by hitting him with your pistol.
As we get older many of us tend to change our workout habits. I'm no exception. I no longer head to the gym and pile weights on the bar to see how much weight I can bench press or curl. My shoulders are fighting back and reminding me of what I put them through playing football and doing Tae Kwon Do and taking plenty of falls in sports and work.
Time to adapt. I still use weights for bench pressing or triceps presses. I do hammer curls and other curls using dumbbells. But more emphasis is on form and tension than on overall weight.
When Covid hit and our gym closed down, I bought an exercise band to go along with the weights I have at home. I liked it so much I now have a large selection of different tension bands. I can do pretty much any exercise using these bands, including assisted pullups as my shoulder won't allow me to do them like before. These bands put constant tension on your muscles without over straining them.
Next came a kettlebell. I bought heavy ones for shrugs and for the farmer's walk. Then I ended up buying different sizes. They offer tension you just can't get with regular weights.
Next came virtual reality fitness, which I just did an article on. I can get cardio work while having a blast and not grinding through an elliptical or treadmill or a stationary bike. I like to give myself the weekend off from exercise to recover but I can't keep myself away from the Quest 2 and the routines.
My point in this article is to explain why this site will start focusing on these forms of exercise. If you're a bodybuilder this site isn't for you. If you're someone who wants to work out and keep your body toned and in top condition without leaving your home, you'll love this.
Now excuse me while I head into my bedroom to play my newest fitness game, Pistol Whip. I can shoot away at the bad guys while ducking and dodging bullets to get a good overall cardio workout. Think of something like Call of Duty but with so much body movement that you can't help but get a good workout.
