T Nation

Bands/Cables For Traveling

Bodybuilding
#1

I will be traveling for several weeks in parts where I will have sporadic (at best) access to weights.

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations regarding bands, and using them alone or with bodyweight exercises? For example, the reviews on this site of the Iron Woody bands suggested that they could be used this way. Anyone had any success with them?

Iron Mind.com sells a cable system, “Fabled Cables,” that they claim is especially useful for travelers. Iron Mind generally makes pretty good stuff, and so this might be worth considering. Anyone know anything about these?

Other ideas as to bands/cables??

I know bodyweight movements and will take my parallettes, but am looking for other ways to maintain some degree of strength and fitness while on the road.

#2

I have some Iron Woody Bands that I got from one of the Renegade DVD packages that I recently purchased. I haven’t put them to use yet, but you should be able to just about anything with them.

I also have a light band and average band from Elite that I’ve used for band good mornings, triceps pushdowns, and band leg curls.

#3

Hey Ajax,

Check out the TNT Cables from Life-Line USA. I just ordered their Standard Set. You can find them here…

https://www.lifeline-usa.com/products.cfm?cd=253&categoryid=2&productid=6

Good luck

[quote]Ajax wrote:
I will be traveling for several weeks in parts where I will have sporadic (at best) access to weights.

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations regarding bands, and using them alone or with bodyweight exercises? For example, the reviews on this site of the Iron Woody bands suggested that they could be used this way. Anyone had any success with them?

Iron Mind.com sells a cable system, “Fabled Cables,” that they claim is especially useful for travelers. Iron Mind generally makes pretty good stuff, and so this might be worth considering. Anyone know anything about these?

Other ideas as to bands/cables??

I know bodyweight movements and will take my parallettes, but am looking for other ways to maintain some degree of strength and fitness while on the road.

[/quote]

#4

I have the ironmind cables. In my opinion they are useful for upper body. I really didn’t like them for lower body training. They also have a book called Training With Cables for Strength which isn’t bad either.

As a side note I bought them because I was traveling to Cuenca Ecuador and thought I wouldn’t be able to find a gym there, but ended finding a decent place to train.

#5

IRON WOODY FITNESS BANDS

www.renegadetraining.com/iron_woody_fitness_bands.html

#6

Thanks to all above for your responses. I appreciate it.

Rohay – I’ll look into the TNT stuff. Have you used anything made by them before? Is their stuff good or gimmicky? I ask because stuff like bands straddle the border beween good and gimmick.

Nate Dogg and JackZep – Are the Iron Woody bands easy to use without handles? Can you just grab them as is and push/pull with bare hands?

Ajax

#7

[quote]Ajax wrote:
Nate Dogg and JackZep – Are the Iron Woody bands easy to use without handles? Can you just grab them as is and push/pull with bare hands?

Ajax

[/quote]

Yes. Very. They are great! I just finished watching one of my Renegade DVD’s and it showed how to do all sorts of band work for the shoulders using the Woody bands. Good stuff!

You can also do band chinups, band good mornings, band pushups, band leg curls, band pull-aparts, band triceps pushdowns, etc.

#8

if you buy bands from EFS they send a training with bands manual with them.

#9

[quote]Ajax wrote:

Nate Dogg and JackZep – Are the Iron Woody bands easy to use without handles? Can you just grab them as is and push/pull with bare hands?

Ajax

[/quote]

I agree with Nate Dogg.

Also, Iron Woody bands are not dyed, so they will last longer than the dyed ones that most retailers sale.

#10

Ajax,

This will be my first experience with the TNT bands. I heard about them from Mike Mahler’s website. I’ll post soon with a review.

[quote]Ajax wrote:
Thanks to all above for your responses. I appreciate it.

Rohay – I’ll look into the TNT stuff. Have you used anything made by them before? Is their stuff good or gimmicky? I ask because stuff like bands straddle the border beween good and gimmick.

Nate Dogg and JackZep – Are the Iron Woody bands easy to use without handles? Can you just grab them as is and push/pull with bare hands?

Ajax

[/quote]

#11

Nate Dogg and JackZeppelin - thanks again for your responses. That’s good to hear that the Iron Woody’s can easily be used alone as well as with barbells.

Rohay – I look forward to hearing what you think of the Lifeline cables. I took a gander at Mahler’s website on cables. Let me know if you can do push-ups w/those cables. They have that “power pushup” thing, but it looks to me like you could use just about any cable or band to do the same thing, so that might just be marketing.