Athlean-X Elast-X Resistance Bands Review
Athlean-X is one of the biggest fitness gurus with millions of subscribers on YouTube, and the owner, Jeff Cavalier, has an extensive library of training tips, programs, and equipment on his channel and website. But are the Athlean-X Elast-X resistance bands worth buying? I'm going to answer that in this review.
This review is broken down into: price, build quality and durability, answering if bands are good for building muscle, convenience, and finally my verdict.
Price
The black band cost me $22 and the red band was $30. This was before tax and shipping. These are reasonably priced for their longevity. So let's get into that.
Build quality and durability
Both of these bands are way sturdier than expected. I thought they would lose tension after a few months, but I've had both of these for well over a year and they show no signs of even being used. I use them to increase the difficulty on my dumbbell presses, curls, deadlifts, and for tricep pushdowns on a pull-up bar. The red band is crazy thick too.
Using the bands to perform a resisted deadlift.
So the build quality and durability are excellent. So now let me answer if resistance bands such as these provide a good workout?
Are Resistance bands good for building muscle?
The answer is yes but also no. Resistance bands by themselves are just that - resistance, but not actual weight. Plus there's no real way to equate the resistance of a band to pounds which is why the ranges are so vague. Pressing a 50 lb dumbbell and using a resistance band to press what's supposedly "50-90 pounds" just doesn't stimulate your muscles the same way. Lifting or pressing a heavy weight requires extra activation of stability muscles. So a curl would incorporate your upper back, abs, shoulder just to keep your arm from falling off while you're holding a heavy weight. It also takes more for force to initiate each rep of a real weight. This is because your sticking point (the part of the lift where you’re the weakest) is generally at the beginning of a lift, and you get stronger as you get better leverage. Resistance bands don't weigh anything, so just holding them doesn’t create any stress on your muscles, and the initial push doesn't have to be very forceful. An advantage of bands is the more you stretch them, the more they try to snap back to their original shape, so the lift gets harder instead of easier as you go.
To summarize, if you're just trying to get stronger, using resistance bands is not as good as using weights by themselves. Bands simply don’t activate your stability muscles or require the same amount of power to start a rep. However, if you combine them with weights, you can isolate muscle groups way better than with weights or bands alone.
For example, with a dumbbell curl, if you add bands to the exercise, you can do reps with a lower weight. This reduces the need for activation of your other muscles besides your bicep. At the same time, as you go up and the lift is supposed to be getting easier, the band pulls it back down and your biceps get a very intense isolation workout. Instead of thinking about bands vs weights, the most effective workouts can be done with bands plus weights. A review of the Bowflex dumbbells I use is linked here, but you can even put books in a backpack and make the lift more intense with bands.
Convenience
This section is gonna be short, you can take these anywhere. The black one you can even roll up and put in your pocket if your pocket's big enough. This and the cost are what makes resistance bands appealing in the first place. Can’t ask for better.
Verdict
The Athlean-X Elast-X bands are definitely a great buy. They’re slightly more expensive than other brands, but they are super durable and reliable. Don't expect to make a full body transformation just with bands, but if you're creative enough you can still build some muscle. When you combine these with weights, you can make all kinds of gains. All kinds…
Rating: 10/10