Research and News
Exercise Station
Thera-Band Academy well-represented at ACSM annual meeting
Jun 6th
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I attended the American College of Sports Medicine’s Annual Meeting in Denver last week. As always, there were lots of excellent scientific presentations, including several by Thera-Band Research Advisory Committee (TRAC) members from around the world. TRAC members presenting their research had their abstracts published in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise supplemental issue. The topics included older adult exercise programs including the Thera-Band Exercise Station, validating exercise intensity of Thera-Band elastic resistance, and its use in patients with neck-shoulder pain. I’ve summarized their research abstracts for the blog and will be posting them over this week. Today: Japanese-American Studies; Wednesday: Danish Studies; Friday: Spanish Studies
Researchers wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Thera-Band® Exercise Station as part of an aerobic and resistance exercise circuit training program in Japanese older adults. They first determined that the program provided an adequate stimulus for aerobic training as participants exercised at 60% of their heart rate; they also achieved low to moderate intensity resistance training based on RPE levels (Imai et al. 2011). The researchers then randomly assigned 39 older adults to either More >
Thera-Band Exercise Station Study Now Available
Dec 24th
Several months ago, I wrote an entry about a study on the Thera-Band® Exercise Station by Dr. Juan Colado from University of Valencia in Spain, titled, Young women can gain as much strength using the Thera-Band® Exercise Station as training with free weights.
At the time, the article was only published on-line; it’s now available in print in the November issue of the International Journal of Sports Medicine. I wanted to share the exercise protocol with you in the spirit of ‘translating research into practice.’ Download the Thera-Band Exercise Station exercise program here.
REFERENCE: Colado JC, et al. A comparison of elastic tubing and isotonic resistance exercises. Int J Sports Med. 2010 Nov;31(11):810-7.
Visit the Thera-Band Academy Exercise Station Resource Center Here
Thera-Band Exercise Station helps Older Adults Improve Functional Fitness
Oct 11th
It’s well-known that exercise is important for older adults to maintain health and function. Many studies have shown that Thera-Band® resistance is effective at improving strength and function in older adults. Dr. Michael Rogers, Chair and Professor at Wichita State University’s Department of Human Performance Studies, collaborated with researchers at Nagoya City University in Japan. He presented his findings at the 2010 Thera-Band Research Advisory Committee meeting. 39 older adults were randomly assigned to a control group or a group using the Thera-Band Exercise Station. The exercise group performed a 12-week circuit training program combining strength and aerobic exercises 3 days per week. After the program, the exercise group had significant improvements in functional fitness and in body composition, whereas the control group did not. Interestingly, the improvements seen with the Exercise Station group were similar to the results the researchers found in a separate study using hydraulic resistance machines. Dr. Rogers noted, “We got the same improvements in strength and function using the Thera-Band exercise station as we got with more expensive machines.” Their findings may have important implications in delivering cost-effective group-based exercise for older adults.
View the Thera-Band Academy Older Adult resource center here
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Young women can gain as much strength using the Thera-Band® Exercise Station as training with free weights
Aug 18th
Dr. Juan Carlos Colado of the University of Valencia in Spain has published several excellent research papers on the effectiveness of Thera-Band® elastic resistance for fitness. In particular, he and his colleagues have shown that elastic resistance is as effective as isotonic machines for increasing strength in middle-aged women (Colado & Triplett 2008). In addition, they showed that elastic resistance exercise intensity can be regulated using “perceived exertion.”
Dr. Colado has continued his scientific investigations on the efficacy of elastic resistance, this time comparing free weight exercise training to elastic tubing exercises using the Thera-Band Exercise Station. His results are published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine. 42 women were randomly assigned to either a free weight exercise group, a Thera-Band exercise group, or a non-exercising control group. The two exercise groups performed the same 15 upper and lower body exercises using the OMNI perceived exertion scale to standardize intensity between the groups. The intervention lasted eight weeks for two to four sessions per week. Subjects were tested for muscular strength before and after the training program.
After the eight week program, both exercise groups reported up to 29% improvement in upper and lower body strength, while the control group did not. There was no More >
Are elastic resistance squats better than free weight squats?
Mar 1st
The squat exercise is used primarily for hip and knee strengthening. It is considered one of the most fundamental strengthening exercises for strength and power in the legs. Elastic bands have been used to add resistance to the squat exercise while using barbell free weights to offer more dynamic resistance at the top of the squat movement as the resistance of the band is at its highest. No studies have directly compared the effects of squatting with elastic resistance versus free weights.
In a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, researchers compared squatting with equivalent work loads of elastic-resisted and isotonic free-weight squats in trained weight lifters. Subjects squatted with each type of resistance while muscle activity and biomechanical variables were measured. The band-resisted squats resulted in higher force, velocity, power, and quadriceps muscle activity near the top of the squat, which includes the first part of the eccentric phase, as well as the last part of the concentric phase.
The researchers concluded that elastic resistance produces similar resistance patterns as standard free weights, except at the bottom of the squat, where the bands are on less stretch and thus, less tension. More importantly, the researchers stated that elastic band squats More >
