Band Chest Fly

The band chest fly trains the pectorals by bringing the arms together against elastic resistance, and the resistance curve is what makes it different from a dumbbell version. A band gets harder the further it stretches, so the load peaks at the point where your hands meet in front of the chest, exactly where the pectorals are shortest and where a dumbbell fly offers almost nothing at all. The two are complementary rather than interchangeable: dumbbells load the stretched position, bands load the contracted one, and a chest programme benefits from both. Standing on the band anchors it and lets you set the starting tension by how much slack you take up before the first repetition. Keep a slight fixed bend in the elbows throughout, since straightening them puts the strain on the joint and bending them further turns the fly into a press.