u/AdministrativeTry934

After more than 20 years of training, my answer would be: being obsessed with moving more and more weight.

When I was younger, I associated progress with more weight, machines and personal records. Today, I'm much more equipment-agnostic.

Machines, barbells, dumbbells, rings, resistance bands, calisthenics or even improvised equipment… I don't really care. There are no sacred cows in training. What matters are effective movement patterns.

Muscle doesn't know whether you're doing a bench press, ring push-ups or a machine press. It doesn't know whether you're using barbells, dumbbells, plates, resistance bands, kettlebells, TRX, Olympic rings or your own bodyweight.

It only responds to Mechanical Tension, Progressive Overload, and, additionally, Metabolic Stress (the pump) and Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy.

What I'm looking for is the stimulus I need, not proof of how much weight I can move.

Today I'd rather manipulate ROM, leverage, unilateral loading, stability, pre-tension my resistance bands as much as possible, manipulate Time Under Tension, and play with proximity to failure before automatically adding more weight.

I'm 45 and turning 46 in November. After more than two decades of training, my goal is no longer simply to lift more. I want to remain strong, aesthetic, mobile and athletic, and keep training for many decades without getting injured.

Less ego. Less dogma. More stimulus.

I'm not in love with any particular exercise or piece of equipment.

I'm in love with the stimulus.

What about you? What is something you used to consider “training properly” that you no longer do today?

I trained quads on Sunday using just two exercises, and I wanted to share the setup because the first one is a particularly effective way I've found to make resistance bands work much harder for quad hypertrophy.

1. Deficit front-foot-elevated split squat - 3 × 15

I elevate the front foot on a wooden platform and keep the rear foot on the floor. The band runs underneath the platform and is already heavily pre-tensioned before I start the rep.

That pre-tension is the part I really like.

Instead of having a band that is almost unloaded at the bottom and only becomes challenging near lockout, I deliberately set it up so there is significant resistance from the beginning of the movement.

Combined with the deficit, deep knee flexion, an upright torso and the unilateral setup, it gives me a very challenging quad-focused movement without needing much external weight.

2. Sissy squats with a Russian belt - 2 × 10

This one isn't a resistance-band exercise, but I include it as the second movement because it's probably one of the most effective quad-focused exercises I've found for my own training.

The Russian belt gives me enough support to control the movement while allowing a deep knee-dominant ROM and keeping the quads as the main focus.

It's a very simple setup, but surprisingly demanding. If you've never tried a belt-assisted Sissy squat, the video might be worth a look.

For me, these two exercises have probably given me the best stimulus-to-fatigue ratio I've found for quad hypertrophy while keeping the equipment and overall training volume very low.

So the whole session was just:

3 × 15 deficit pre-tensioned band split squats

2 × 10 Russian-belt Sissy squats

5 hard sets total.

I really like this style of training: rather than trying to make an exercise harder simply by adding more weight, I try to manipulate ROM, leverage, unilateral loading, band tension and setup to make relatively simple exercises brutally effective.

The video shows the split squat setup and execution. I'm curious whether anyone else here uses this kind of pre-tensioned band setup for unilateral leg work.

Sharing the band part of yesterday's pull session.

All done at night at my local calisthenics park

VIDEO BREAKDOWN (in order):

1. Supinated Platform Row - Bar + Extra Heavy Blue Band (0:00)

Setup: Wooden platform on the floor, blue band looped under it, bar on top. Feet on platform, bent over, neutral spine.

All 4 sets supinated. I did it supinated on purpose. With a pronated grip, I feel rhomboids/mid-traps/rear delts, the whole upper back. With a supinated grip, elbows stay tucked close to the hips; pure shoulder extension = much more lat isolation, especially the lower lats. This was my main lat thickness movement.

2. Straight-Arm Pullover - Bar + Medium Black Band anchored high (1:07)

Setup: Black band anchored high on the calisthenics rig + bar. Hinge position, pulling from overhead to hips with almost straight arms.

This is my favorite band exercise for lat stretch and width. No rest at the top, constant stretch on the lats and serratus. Hits the function that rows don't - shoulder extension from a fully stretched position. Brutal with bands because tension increases as you pull down.

3. Unilateral Bayesian Curl - Heavy Purple Band anchored low (2:18)

Setup: Band anchored low on the rig behind me, staggered stance, one hand on chest to avoid cheating, curling with the other arm.

Anchoring behind the body puts the bicep in full stretch at the start, like a Bayesian cable curl but with a band. Great peak contraction, and you can't cheat because of the stance.

Why no vertical pulling like pull-ups in this video?

I had 4 sets of standing hip thrust with the Extra Heavy Blue band and 4 sets of ring rows (Australians pull-ups) before this so I was already at 8 sets of heavy row work. With the ring rows + supinated platform rows + pullovers, lats were completely fried. I skipped vertical pulling intentionally to keep quality.

Anyway, if you train only with bands, this combo: supinated heavy row for lower lats, pullover for stretch/width, Bayesian curl for long head biceps, covers a lot.

Hope it helps!!

I've been experimenting with different ways of getting a serious leg stimulus from resistance bands, and this variation has become one of my favorites.

It's basically a front-foot-elevated split squat with a resistance band and an X3-style bar.

The setup is simple:

I elevate the front foot about 25 cm (10 inches) on a wooden abdominal bench/platform.

The rear foot stays on the floor.

I run a heavy resistance band underneath the bench and connect it to the bar.

I use an X3-style bar in a front-loaded position.

The important part is that I start with the band already under significant tension rather than letting it go slack at the bottom.

The elevated front foot gives me a much greater range of motion than a regular split squat. At the same time, the band provides meaningful resistance from the bottom and progressively increases tension as I come up.

Why I like it

For me, this solves one of the biggest limitations of band-only leg training: finding a way to make unilateral leg work genuinely challenging without needing a huge amount of external weight.

The unilateral setup makes even relatively modest resistance very demanding. The front-foot elevation gives you plenty of ROM, while the band allows you to create a high level of resistance without needing a rack, machine or heavy dumbbells.

I also like the fact that it doesn't feel like a typical machine-based leg exercise. You have to control the position, stabilize yourself and manage the band throughout the entire movement.

I've found it particularly good for quads and glutes, and the combination of deep ROM + unilateral loading + increasing band tension makes the final reps pretty brutal.

I've been progressively increasing the resistance and recently managed to take the same setup from around 5 reps to 10–12 controlled reps with the same band.

If you're training primarily with resistance bands and feel that your leg training is becoming limited, I'd definitely give this variation a try.

Just make sure the band is securely anchored and that the setup is stable before loading it heavily.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has experimented with something similar.

Anyone else here dealing with frontal-only hair loss and struggling to find a system that actually fits your level of recession? That’s been my problem for years. My hair loss is only in the frontal area, but most frontal systems on the market are too shallow for my level of recession.

The largest standard frontal piece I’ve found is a 4x18 cm lace frontal, and for my case, I still need around 3-4 cm more depth to cover the area fully. I contacted manufacturers to ask if they could produce larger frontal pieces, but the answer was essentially: “yes, but it would have to be custom-made.”

The problem is that once you go custom, the price becomes ridiculous. In fact, a custom oversized frontal can end up costing MORE than a full standard hair system, which honestly makes no sense when you only need frontal coverage. So I came up with my own solution: a sort of “Frankenstein” hybrid system. What I do is:

- Use a standard 4x18 lace frontal as the front hairline

- Then attach additional skin/poly pieces behind it using leftover material from old full systems I had at home I never threw away the back sections from my older systems, so I reshaped and adapted those pieces to extend the coverage area behind the frontal. To connect both parts, I use tapes like: Walker Ultra Hold, SuperTape, Walker Duo-Tac, etc.

- I basically fuse both pieces together from underneath using the tape, then apply strong pressure using something flat and heavy (a spoon, cylinder, etc.) to compress and flatten the tapes as much as possible.

The result: natural lace hairline in the front and extra depth exactly where I need it. Way cheaper than ordering a custom unit and no need to wear a full cap system when my loss is only frontal.

I’ll attach pictures of my type of frontal hair loss, the standard 4x18 frontal piece, the modified “Frankenstein” version and the final installed result. Maybe this helps someone else in the same situation.