Hello, beginner here. I am new to resistance bands, weight lifting, and really exercise in general. I'm 41 year old female, currently 260 lb. I've lost 50 lb. in the last 6 months, and have been slowly trying to work in strength training to prevent muscle loss, and gain strength overall. I decided resistance bands would be a good place to start, since I figure I have the musculature of a cucumber and have waaayy too much anxiety and intimidation to try a gym.
I started with tube resistance bands (10-50 lb) a few months ago. From what I have read, the goal was to use resistance levels where I would reach failure within 8-10 reps. While some things like lat raises are still difficult with the 10 lb. band, most everything else, I quickly graduated to using all 5 bands together and getting 15-20 reps without fatigue, and wondered if I was doing it right. I then got another tube set that was 30-80 lb., was stacking to 240, and still not getting to failure within 8-10 reps! Initially, I'll struggle to even be able to do one rep at a given resistance, but once I can do one, I can do 12-15 easily. Surely I must be doing something wrong.
Then I found James Grage's youtube, and yep, I've been doing it wrong! I bought a set of loop bands, so I could grab lower in the band to create more resistance, and have been working to make sure I'm engaging the proper muscles, which I still don't have a lot of confidence on. I've tried his paddle board workout, and got a good burn from some lower resistances, but still really struggled with the mechanics of it overall. For my anchored exercises, I used the 50-125 lb. band, grabbing close to the top, trying for proper muscles, and can still do 20+ reps. The most difficult part about it is just the ergonomics of holding the actual band (with gloves), and how tightly I have to grip it to try to pull out, and the way it rubs on the outer parts of my hands with some movements. I'm stopping because of hand cramps and general discomfort vs. muscle fatigue. With the tube bands, I was at least breaking a sweat getting elevated heart rate and would feel genuinely worn out by the end, vs. with the loop, I wasn't even getting that, despite feeling as though I had better form and more resistance throughout the full movement. Clearly I need to go up to the heaviest band, but still just feels like I'm missing something here.
Does this sound normal? Should achieving failure within 8-10 reps really be the goal, or is that unrealistic with bands? Is the issue here that I'm using cheaper sets from Amazon? Is there something else I can do to make this easier on the hands? My last couple reps, I ended up putting balled up fluffy socks on top of the band so I could grab those, which helped, but also made it a lot more clunky to execute! Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!