Every barbell movement has a problem built into it. At some points in the range of motion, you are weaker. At others, you are stronger. A conventional barbell doesn't know or care that you're significantly stronger at the top of a deadlift than at the floor. The result is that the load that challenges you maximally at your weakest position is too light at your strongest position — and by the time the bar reaches where you're strongest, you're already decelerating because the external demand has dropped below your force output. This is the deceleration problem. Bands and chains solve it.
Chains are draped over the barbell such that, when the bar is in its lowest position, most of the chain is piled on the floor. As the bar rises, more chain comes off the floor and loads onto the bar. The weight increases as you ascend — exactly matching where your leverage improves and you can handle more load. At the bottom of a squat or bench press, all the chain is on the floor. At lockout, all the chain is loaded. This creates a loading curve that more closely matches the strength curve, eliminating the deceleration phase.
Bands work differently from chains and create different training effects. Like chains, bands add resistance at the top where you are strongest. But bands do something chains cannot: they add kinetic energy to the eccentric (lowering) phase by actively pulling the bar downward faster than gravity alone. This over-speed eccentric increases the rate at which the muscle-tendon unit is loaded, generating more kinetic energy that can be stored and released in the subsequent concentric phase. Simmons calls this virtual force.
Simmons' prescription for band tension varies by training intent:
The theoretical basis for accommodating resistance is the force-velocity curve. Maximum force and maximum velocity cannot be produced simultaneously — as external resistance increases, bar velocity decreases; as resistance decreases, velocity can increase but force applied to the bar decreases. The optimal zone for developing speed-strength is somewhere in the middle — not maximal load, not near-zero load, but the range where significant force and significant velocity can coexist.
Bands and chains allow the athlete to be in this optimal zone throughout the range of motion, rather than only at the weakest point. Without accommodating resistance, the bar only loads the athlete maximally at the sticking point. With it, the challenge extends through the full range, including the top portions where the body is strongest and where, without bands or chains, the stimulus would be insufficient.
Every DE day uses some form of accommodating resistance. The prescription changes across waves: Wave 1 uses mini band bench and banded box squats at 50–60%. Wave 2 introduces higher band tension and shifts toward strength-speed. Wave 3 peaks the force-velocity work with the highest total loading of the three working waves.
The 3-cycle pendulum wave — 50%, 55%, 60%, back to 50% — prevents accommodation to the specific loading scheme while allowing bar speed improvement to be tracked. If Week 3 at 60% feels faster than Week 1 at 50% felt in the previous wave, the method is working. Bands and chains aren't a gimmick. They are the mechanism by which DE training delivers its intended adaptation — force production across the full range of motion, with no deceleration phase.
Every DE day in ETR uses accommodating resistance. See the full structure.
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