A trip to the gym should be anything but monotonous. Like in all great relationships, you need to introduce some variety in your routine so that you don’t lose motivation and keep the relationship going! What’s the best example of life with no taste? Ketchup. It can be used on anything! In the gym, this means Fat Gripz and Resistance Bands.

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So, what are they?

Fat Gripz are an accessory that allows you to add thickness to barbells or dumbbells. They were built with the goal of allowing you to train with a thick bar (a barbell that’s significantly thicker than average barbells) for those who don’t have access to this type of equipment. As you can imagine, not all gyms have this type of equipment, and that’s why these were invented. For those of you who are familiar with them, you know the difficulty of shopping and carrying bags after a gym session using them (but let’s leave that for later on).

Resistance Bands, as the name indicates, are elastic bands with variable resistance, which normally have specific colors according to the resistance levels, so that you can distinguish them properly. They are also used for physical rehabilitation. So, their use is quite ample.

How to use?

Fat Grips will introduce all of the benefits of thick bar training in two compact grips. The use of this type of grip isn’t new and studies suggest that training with a thick bar stimulates more of the forearm muscles. Fat Gripz will do exactly that, having greater flexibility in terms of use, seeing as you can put them on dumbbells or even on Pull-Up bars!

Any exercise that involves a barbell or dumbbell can involve Fat Gripz. It’ll torture your forearms and make them grow, as well as develop your grip strength. As you can imagine, forearm training doesn’t serve only aesthetical purposes, but also greater motor quality. Here are a few advantages:

• It’ll improve grip strength, since it’ll stimulate the coordination between hand and forearm, which will have a huge carryover onto big lifts like Deadlifts and Rows.
• It will improve your forearm’s strength as well as your elbow joint strength, which can help you get rid of tendinitis and elbow pain.

Resistance Bands are another useful accessory that has ample use. Their elasticity allows growing tension and resistance, which makes them a good option for muscular rehab. This means that when the bands are extended they have more resistance. They can be used for warming up or even to add resistance to your barbell/dumbbell exercises. These bands can also offer support by removing resistance on certain exercises like Pull-Ups. You can do this by looping them around the bar and placing your foot or knee inside the other end. This will make the concentric/positive portion of the movement easier, since the band will provide a little “push” when you’re going up. Here are a few more advantages of their use:

• Contrary to free weights, bands don’t need gravity to work, which allows execution of movement in more functional patterns that are used in day-to-day activities.
• This independence from gravity also allows more muscular focus on certain exercises, as many studies have shown on squatting with bands. It enables you to shift the emphasis between the hamstrings and the quads by changing the angle of pull of the bands.

The fact that they don’t have a variable linear resistance allows greater or more complete range of motion. So, greater stimuli for the muscles.

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