Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The Chest Expander

One of the best training equipment is not one thats on weights or kettlebells but rubber cables. The Chest Expander is considered the cable equipment to train the shoulders/arms/back. Once you use over a period of time and using heavier type cables it'll make your upper body have the strength of male gorilla (slight exaggeration) but you know what i'm getting at. At one time during the golden age of physical culture it was used in competitions in europe to determine who was the strongest strand puller (thats what they called it then).

Now unlike weights where you have to switch to a different weight and that can be a bit of a hassel considering people in gyms using the equipment, with the cables take a couple of em and add on either lighter or heavier cables, very simple. When stretched out it works the shoulders from angles you cant get from either weights or bodyweight exercises. It not only builds great strength but you're building tremendous flexibility and that alone works well into sports like fighting, gymnastics, football pretty every sport you do. Also like weightlifting you have choices to do major alternative lifts for the expander like the Clean & Jerk, Military Press, Bicep Curls, Upright Rows and many others.

Now I believe there are 10 different set of cables for the expander these ranging from pink to the blue and the blue cables are the toughest of them. I havent heard a person doing the Clean & Jerk with all three cables so the equivilant is around 275-330 pounds of resistance. This little peice of equipment can give your upper body animal-like strength cause when pull or lift the cables, your body is shaking so that tells you you're working major muscle groups and your using it from many angles so you're getting the benefit of working from a different prespective. I have used this device to aid in feats of strength and i'll tell ya it got me there so it should never be neglected in any regimen whether its weightlifting, kettlebell training, bodyweight ect. Give it a try and you'll see your strength skyrocket into a whole demension.

If you feel you want to add a different kind of strength and flexibility in your training, John Hinds will take care of you my brother and never fall short of becoming super strong.

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

2 comments:

Chest Expander said...

Chest expander exercises is great tool for warm-up before general trainings. It can also be replaced with weight lifting, but chest expander training is a slightly different thing.

Admin said...

I just happened upon your blog while trying to locate any kind of workout guide for the Life Line Chest Expanders. I bought the set -- all nine or so cables.

They arrived last Wednesday or Thursday.

However -- and very unfortunately -- there's no suggested workout guide that comes with the set.

Sure, I bet they're great for someone deeply familiar with working out with them, but I haven't had a workout with chest expanders since around 1970 (I'm 61 now).

Back then, I had a couple sets of Weider expanders -- the steel springs.

I never much cared for the pinching I occasionally had to contend with, but what completely put me off them for good was the day one of the cable hooks actually broke off while I was doing a cable stretch with one cable held down past my left knee, and the other arm extended out and up beyond my right shoulder.

The cable with what was left of the hook came whizzing right up and across my throat, but failed to manage to break the skin -- I just had a white mark tracing its path.

The thought of what might have happened shook me so badly, I never touched the damn things again. I'd lost all confidence in them as an exercising tool.

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