Customer Reviews

The Great Stretch Tubing Handbook

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found out about this handbook from my aerobic instructor. We use the stretch tubing with most of the classes. I immediately searched at Borders bookstore. Couldn't find it. Went online and found and ordered it from Amazon.com. I ordered one for me (a gym junkie who needs a stretch tubing routine for rainy days) and for a friend who works out at home with his home gym. We both agree that the handbook is very useful.

The Great Stretch Tubing Handbook includes exercises that work each part of the body. If you want to maintain a toned figure the handbook is for you. It is not to be used for heavy "stretching".

First there are a dozen stretches listed and displayed by a model. Then the exercises for: chest, shoulders, rotator cuff, back, biceps, triceps, forearms, core, and legs.

The only equipment you will need is stretch tubing (or bands). The handbook explains how to make and use your door attachment.

Each exercise (and stretch) is demonstrated by a model. You don't have to guess about how the movement is executed.

Also, for those body-conscious folks, each exercise explains EXACTLY which muscles you'll work. Example: For the downward chest crossover: muscles worked = anterior deltoid, pectoralis major.

pros:
=low price
=great photos
=small enough to pack in a gym bag
=easy to follow step by step instructions
=general and specific descriptions of muscle groups being worked

cons:
=lots of instructions (for a newbie)

=too small for someone trying to follow along (posters are available)

Injuring my upper arm and shoulder in a minor motorcycle spill, and refusing to pay $40/hr. for physio-therapy, I needed to find a less expensive alternative. The Great Stretch Tubing Handbook was the ideal guide for me. Using inexpensive tubing at home, I was able to exercise the exact muscle groups required and working slowly through the clear instructions and well demonstrated routines, I now have over 90% of my original mobility back in my left arm and shoulder. I found the section on the Rotator Cuff of particular interest for my application. The guide is colourful, simple to follow and a good value for [the money]-- when you consider I would have spent about $400 going to a clinic. Although I'll never use the latin names for the muscle groups in daily conversation, the body diagrams in the book provided a good review, should I ever need to talk to my Doctor about specific muscles.

I liked this book very much.

What was great for me about this book:
1. Small format and only 64 pages.
This book is small enough to take anywhere, it includes everything you need and nothing you don't.
It doesn't waste pages on trying to motivate or make you feel good, it just tells you how to do it, exactly what I needed.
2. Every exercise has a description of, not only how to do the exercise, but the reminders on how to protect yourself, like stabilize your torso and position of your feet. Some books only list these once at the beginning and are too easily forgotten, particularly in the home situation.
3. Every exercise was on its own page.
This meant I could scan each page, print it and display it on a wall while I was doing the exercise, great when you change the routine every 4-6 weeks for a reminder.
4. The muscles targeted are listed with each exercise.
This meant I could easily make up my own workout routine and know which major and minor muscle groups were included or excluded.
5. Sample workout routine.
This gives you the basics on how many exercises to include in each major area of the body and assists in planning my own variations.
6. Muscle anatomy diagrams included.
Knowing where the muscles are that the exercise is targeting helped me in correctly carrying out the exercises as well as the stretches.
7. Stretches included.

What was not so great for me about this book:
1. Time required for stretching.
There was no way I could do each stretch 3 times on a daily basis; this would have meant a minimum of 69 minutes of stretching daily, if following the recommended stretch duration of 60 seconds.
I felt this recommendation was excessive; surely 30 minutes a day of stretching is enough.
Either do each stretch once and hold for 60 seconds or do each stretch 3 times and hold for 20 seconds, would have been more in keeping with the time constraints of the average person.
A suggestion of a variation for time poor average citizens would have been useful.

I teach a group exercise class that uses tubing. I wanted a book to give me some new exercise ideas. This book gives the reader tube exercises--but you have to attach the tube to a doorway! It is not a good a good reference book if you are looking for something to use for a group. If a person were just starting an exercise program at home and wanted a beginners book, this would be OK. Also, for the price it is little more that a pamphlet--kinda a rip. Does have some nice beginners streches and muscle diagrams.

If you intend on completing all the exercises in this book I'd highly recommend that you order a light, medium and heavy resistance band. Most of the exercises can be completed with a medium resistance band, however there are some that are impossible to do properly without light or heavy resistance. The "Bell" resistance bands have a door attachment but there are also instructions for creating your own door attachment using nylon cord/rope.

The exercises are all fairly simple to do. The only problem I encountered was the fact that you had to keep changing the resistance band height in the door. This is a minor irritation that could have been prevented by putting all the exercises in a different order. In this book they are organized in the following order: Chest, Shoulders, Rotator Cuff, Back, Biceps, Triceps, Forearms, Core and Legs. So if you want a full-body workout you have to just adjust the band for each exercise. Some that might be familiar to you include:

Incline Chest Press
Chest Flye
Overhead Shoulder Press
Seated Low Row
Crunch
Squat

If you don't have time to go to the gym then these exercises are fun to do at home. The place I felt the work was mostly in my upper body and back. If you have any back problems you might want to try the light resistance band first. Once you have three bands you can just write the color of the band that works on each exercise.

As with the Medicine Ball Workout, the easiest way to use this book (so it stays open) is to cut it in half. Then, simply punch holes in the corner of each page and put it on a metal ring. This will allow all the pages to lay flat when you are exercising. This book also includes a brief section on stretching, muscle diagrams and information on aerobic training. You can start with as little as 8 reps per exercise and work your way up to two sets of fifteen reps.

~The Rebecca Review

There's a lot to like about this book. First of all,I like the unique evercises for each muscle group of the body. The illustrations are clear and the exercise desciption concise.There's no long drawn out clutter.The stretch section alone is worth the price of the book...and exercising with stretch tubing makes sooo much sense ! We sorely need a more common sense approach to exercising and this book fills that need.

Pros
- clear instructions
- exercises are pictured as well as explained
- large number of exercises
- pretty much all areas of the body are covered
- includes a section on how to make a door attachment and also warm-up / stretching
- a FULL SECTION for rotator cuffs.

Cons:
- Maybe price - and even that is a minor complaint.

If you don't want to travel with 200 lbs of weights, then stretch tubing is the way to go. Leave your weights at home, and take a small bag of stretch tubing when you're on the road or on vacation. The tubing offers resistance, which is what strength training is all about. This book tells you just how to use the tubing to get the most out of it. There are good color pictures and detailed instructions. The only thing better would be to have someone do the exercises for you.

the pictures and product are good. Illustrations that can help one to
get started even a beginner in building and firming muscle
JL

One reviewer said this book is lacking depth and thus is for beginners. Perhaps that's true but I'm a beginner. Regardless of whether or not the book is for beginners it has many attributes:

It is:

Very well organized: It starts by explaining the pros and cons of Resistance Tubes and the difference between resistance tubes and resistance bands.

It stresses and outlines very clearly with easy to understand language and excellent color photos on high quality paper:

1. Warm up

2. Using Proper Posture

3. Using Proper Form

4. Breathing properly

5. When and why to stop training (e.g. pain)

6. How frequently you should train,

7. What the expected time duration for a training session is

8. Understanding the goal of fatiguing a specific muscle group

9. Range of Motion

10. Speed of your movment

11. the importance of proper form

12. When and why the routine should be changed, and;

13 Rest intervals between one exercise and the next

Every exercise is beautifully illustrated and explains what muscles are being worked.

The book is small in terms of number of pages and size but the paper quality is excellent. In my mind, that the book is small is a bonus because it's easy to through into your bag of tubes and take with you wherever you go.

I needed a book for Beginners. This book fits the bill and I suspect it will be of value to me for at least a year and perhaps longer. Maybe then I'll want or need something more in depth but maybe not. There's a lot of Web sites where people can get tubing exercise routines. I would think that once you've mastered the basics, provided in this book, you may never need to buy another book because you'll have a good solid understanding of what's important, namely, warming up and all the other aforementioned twelve items.

Now, you just have to get into the routine of doing the workouts. If you do them diligently, I believe good results will be had.