Read the original story by Jim Seitzer here:
"They say there's nothing new under the sun. And, if you listen to the critics, you might very well be lulled into a sense of complacency especially when it comes to the world of weight training and athletic performance.
After 30-years of heavy lifting to become a national champion bodybuilder and elite powerlifter, the wear-n-tear of it all began first in my shoulders as an annoying tightness that quickly progressed to an all-out inflammation cycle that made it impossible to do anything. Just warm up with a 45-lb. bar was painful and crippling.
Strongly motivated to fix the problem, I tried physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, rolfing, chiropractic - anything and everyone I knew in the area of sports-related injury and rehabilitation. One-year and four-months later, I was no further along in the healing process and finally resigned myself to the inevitable conclusion that surgery was the means of last resort.
Then on a Sunday morning at Westside Barbell, warming up on the bench with an empty bar, it felt the same as it always had - stiff, tight and painful. The had shoulders
given up and a wave of depression washed over my psyche. Sixteen years ago, elastic bands and training with bands was something new that had not yet caught on in the strength world, let alone in the area of sports-related injuries. So, that morning when I decided to pick up a wooden broom stick and hang a pair of 25-lb. kettlebells from minibands, I knew I was also deciding to take myself to the hospital immediately after because it was pretty clear what was going to happen. Sometimes a feeling of hopelessness will result in irrational behavior.
I laid back down on the bench and lifted the shaky broom stick out of the rack. One, two, three...then ten complete reps with fifty bouncing and out-of-control pounds hanging from 41-inch minibands. It looked ridiculous and it looked silly, but it was also the first time in 16-months that I had done any movement with no pain in my shoulders. Zero pain. I did five more sets that morning on the bench with no pain. I didn't know what was happening - I just knew it was something big. Six-weeks later I was back to 85% and two-weeks after that, I was at 100% and doing anything and everything in the gym at full power.
This was the start of the kinetic miracle. A counterintuitive concept that seemed like such a wild impossibility and yet most likely the reason it remained undiscovered for years. BandBell was born from this inauspicious morning and derived its inspiration and energy from the simple fact it was doing so much good for people. And to this day, it's still the driving force that moves us forward."