Since my bicep injury in 2019, I’ve noticed that delayed onset muscle soreness [DOMS] from free weight workouts has become much more painful for me. I have no concrete explanation for this – maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or the result of fluoroquinolone toxicity or some other undiagnosed issue, but after struggling with it for over a year, I decided I needed to try something different.
Having been in physical therapy seemingly non-stop since 2018, I’d had my share of experience of working with exercise bands, but had never considered replacing my free weight workouts with band exercises. This was a big step for someone that focusing of compound, multi-joint movements … staying away from machines and gimmicky trends that seemingly plague the fitness world. When the X3 system went on sale and I had money to spend through my wellness reimbursement program at work, I decided it was time to buy.
With some prompting from my physical therapist, I thought I might use the bands to get my body used to working out again — it had been a good 3 years since I could say that I worked out consistently for a solid six months, by far the longest period of inconsistency in my 30 years of lifting weights. Now, six months in to using bands exclusively, I question whether I’ll ever go back to free weights. At the very least, I don’t see myself not using bands going forward. This is why:
- Time + motivation are hard to come by these days. Without my daily physical therapy exercises, my workout can be done in 15 minutes. If I can’t find 15 minutes to workout, I got issues bigger than weights v. bands to worry about …
- DOMS is non-existent from bands .. and it’s not like I’m not working hard. It’s not uncommon for me to feel nauseous after a tough set. At times I’ve found myself dreading an upcoming set because I know how much it is going to suck — similar to the feeling I’d sometimes get before a set of heavy deadlifts.
- RESULTS. I’m not quite ready to post that before + after photo from my progress so far this year, but it’s hard to argue with what I’m seeing:
While my experience has been overwhelmingly positive with the X3, I do have questions that need to be answered.
- The measurements for my chest and shoulders have decreased over the last 6 months. Is this due to a loss in muscle mass, fat or both?
- How do the ‘gains’ with X3 translate to real world strength (for lack of a better term).
- Results – I’m a stats/data junkie. Seeing progress keeps me motivated. How can I measure progress with X3?
