My Review of Bodylastics After Using It For Over a Decade

I've had this blog post in draft form for a few years now, and am finally publishing it. At the time I originally wrote it, I was 100% behind Bodylastics, with a small caveat concerning the anti-snap technology. Now, I'm looking for an alternative due to the discrepancy in their explained max resistance amounts.

Bodylastics is a system of stackable resistance bands used for exercise. I asked for a set as a Christmas present back in 2013 and have been using it ever since. At the time I received it, Bodylastics was a unique product, but since then many imitators have sprung forth. It's a product I use regularly and am quite happy with. But it's not without it's caveats, and the changes they've made in the past few years have not been for the better.

The Product and Its Advantages

Bodylastics produces multiple products these days, but the one I'll be discussing is the one they're known best for: stackable resistance bands. These are tube resistance bands with clips on each end, allowing you to attach them to different handles or straps, as well as using multiple bands simultaneously. This allows you to increase or decrease resistance fairly easily, and also allows for variations in traditional exercises as well as exercises you can't do with free weights and/or machines, either by using the bands by themselves, or along with an anchor which is usually positioned in a closed doorway, allowing for different forms of exercises. They're also light and easy to travel with.

The Differences When Working Out with Resistance Bands

When working with resistance bands, the amount of resistance isn't constant, as it is with free weights and weight machines, but rather the resistance increases as the band is stretched. So, when considering a resistance band, the band's resistance amount is its maximum resistance amount. When using resistance bands, your muscles are getting less resistance than when using free weights or a weight machine with the same amount of weight, because with bands the resistance varies and isn't constant as it is when using the other forms of weights. When using bands, the resistance is less when you're halfway through the motion, and at its peak when you've stretched it as far as safely advisable (overstretching the bands is bad and can lead to breakage).

But this isn't the only difference. When working out with free weights, you need to not only lift the weight, but also keep it steady, wherein with weight machines, you don't need to maintain stability, but just lift the weight. With bands, it's more like free weights in that you're controlling the form.

Another difference is that the types of exercises you can do with bands are more flexible (no pun intended) due to the nature of using anchors to secure the bands at different heights, or being able to stand on them.

Which form of resistance is best? Everyone will probably have their own opinion, and the truth is that it probably depends on your situation. I like using bands because the exercises I do with them put less (or no) strain on my joints or back. This is definitely an advantage.

Changes to the Product Over the Years

The company has made different aesthetic changes to the bands over the years, but the length of the bands has varied slightly over the years. My original set, from end-to-end, was just slightly longer than the newer bands I purchased later when I needed more resistance. Because of the difference, even slight, in length, if I use these bands together, one will start providing resistance before the other.

Additionally, over the years, there have been variations in the carabiners (clips) and the straps which attach them to the bands. But the weight amounts have been the most drastic change.

How Accurate Are the Weight Amounts

Bodylastics mentions that their resistance band weight numbers are more accurate than the competition (see information provided on their website here, under "Accurate, Not Fairytale Resistance Levels") (UPDATE: page has since been removed), and I used to believe this to be true. However, sometimes the numbers just seem to not add up. For example, I'm currently using 4 of their 40 lb. black bands to do a standing chest press exercise. Given that the maximum end-to-end resistance of these bands is 40 lbs., and I'm looping each one through a door anchor which doubles them over, unless I'm mistaken the result would be 320 lbs. (4 * (40 * 2)) = 320. Maybe my understanding of the amount of provided resistance when doubled over is wrong. But as someone who used to exercise with free weights and had once been able to bench press 230 lbs., I can't imagine I've surpassed that. To be able to bench that much was a milestone for me, and it showed in my physique. For those reasons, I don't think these numbers add up, but again, my understanding of the amount of resistance provided when the bands are doubled over (either by having both ends on a single handle, or by using one handle on the end of each band) could be incorrect. But about a year ago, things really got funny: The company now claimed that the max resistance of each band was approximately 4 times the end-to-end resistance when the bands are doubled over. I actually have two different emails from them: one saying that the max resistance amount of a doubled-over band was twice the resistance amount on the strap, and then, just a year later, a different email from them which claims it's 4 times that amount. The research I've done seems to indicate the former (2x) amount is the accurate amount. Unfortunately, this all happened after I'd purchased some newer 90 and 120 pound bands...and found them to be lighter and smaller than bands I had with smaller amounts. Here, my 40 pound band is thicker and heavier than the 120 pound band (which, given their explanation on the amounts, is equivalent to their old 30 pound band...so the issue is really that they've upped their estimate of the max values, and this does not seem accurate to me).

My Experience with the Patented Anti-Snap Tech

First let me say that I don't expect any of these bands to last forever, and that in the many years I've been using them, only one has ever snapped -- but it was in a way that I could never have known the band was nearing failure, and the Anti-Snap technology did not prevent the sudden lack of resistance from causing injury. While I suffered no serious injury, I believe it was only due to the fact that I was using two bands together that prevented this.

I was doing this exercise shown on Bodylastics' own website (UPDATE: that exercise page has since been removed), and was doing so with a third-party bar attachment rather than separate handles (though this is irrelevant to the situation). One of the bands snapped, causing the bar to crash into my nose. I think if I hadn't been using two bands, I may well have broken my nose -- the other band provided the additional resistance which kept things from ending up much worse.

Examining the band afterward, I found that it had snapped within the part of the band that connects the band itself to the clip. Short of x-raying the band, I'd have never been able to tell it was failing. Additionally, the length of nylon cord within the band seemed, to me at least, too long, and in my case had not prevented the band from snapping back.

I reached out to the company and provided them with pictures, and the response I received mentioned different reasons that bands could fail, including stretching them to their fullest extent. However, the exercise I was doing did just that, and was shown on their website. I mentioned this, but the exercise remains there. I had only recently begun doing this exercise, and strongly suspect, based on how the band broke, that it was the cause.

No resistance band is snap proof, and eventually, given time, a band could snap. While I like the idea of the Anti-Snap Tech, in my own experience, it did not prevent the band from snapping back and hitting me. I'm very skeptical that this feature is effective.

Final Thoughts

If you'd asked me just two years ago, I'd have told you that I like this product a lot and recommend it, with a few words of caution. The first would be to not place any consideration in the Anti-Snap Tech. As I just mentioned, it was ineffective in my own experience. The second would be to avoid any exercises (including ones shown on their website) which show or result in the band being stretched to an extreme degree (this is subjective, of course, but use common sense). A rough estimate might be that the band should not increase by 50% in length, but that's just a guess without any sort of actual experimentation. However, since their reevaluation of the bands' max resistance amount, which seems incorrect in what I've been able to ascertain, I can no longer recommend the product. Add to that the switch in direction from being a product which has as a selling point the ability to use it without needing any extra equipment (portable, etc.), to the introduction now of an exercise machine based around these bands (reminds me in a way of Soloflex), and I think things have really changed for Bodylastics.