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Band on the rise
After long struggle, Flex Band flexes marketplace muscle
By Thrity Umrigar
Akron Beacon Journal staff writer
Karen Schiely, ABJ
Abbie Yates of the University of Akron cheerleading team strains agains a Flex Band held by teammates. One user says the device is good for stretching, flexibility, strength training and rehabilitation.
Their designer casually refers to them as ``rubber bands.''
Indeed, they look like giant rubber bands, in shades of red, black and purple.
To hear their supporters tell it, though, the latex-and-rubber exercise Flex Band can do everything, from helping older adults gain more flexibility, to helping a Twinsburg dentist break a world record by bench-pressing 480 pounds.
You can loop the thick belt around your back and toes to do leg lifts or tie it on a door knob to stretch your back muscles. Flex Bands are used for developing strength as well as flexibility.
Twenty-two years after they were designed by ##### Hartzell, a retired football coach in the Youngstown area, the Flex Band has suddenly gained popularity. Everybody's using them, from the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees, to the University of Akron's cheerleading team and the Youngstown State University and Ohio State's football teams.
Flex Bands come in six different sizes and resistance. They are 41 inches long and can stretch up to eight times their length. The wider the band, the more the resistance.
8-year band
Dr. Michael Shimmel, owner of Stow-Kent Chiropractic Clinic on Graham Road in Stow, is a believer. He first learned about Flex Band in the mid-'90s, when the late Jimmy Warfield, trainer for the Indians, gave him one. Shimmel put the belt away and out of his mind. But when a Massillion basketball coach mentioned Flex Band to him a few months later, Shimmel was intrigued.
He spent the next eight Saturdays at Hartzell's enormous all-rubber band gym in Youngstown. ``At that point, I was hooked,'' he said. ``I started doing the same exercises I taught my patients but with the band.''
Shimmel is now Hartzell's top distributor, selling about 3,000 bands a year. The bands provide different levels of resistance, from 25 to 200 pounds of pressure.
Sean Wade, who works as a rehabilitation therapist at Stow-Kent Chiropractic, also swears by the bands. He said athletes and regular people who exercise with the bands are much less likely to injure themselves than those using weights.
Wade has been using the same band for eight years. It is frayed but thanks to technology that constructs the band in layers and does not use seams, it has not torn. Shimmel and Wade have been touting the bands to several local high schools. They demonstrate the product and then Wade performs his tour de force -- he turns his ankle on its side and then jumps on it as hard as he can. Training with the belt has strengthened his ankle to the extent that even this drastic movement does not sprain it.
The demonstrations have worked. Massillion, Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Stow and Tallmadge High Schools all use Flex Band as part of their strength training programs.
Struggle
Hartzell first felt the need for a kinder, gentler workout device in 1978, while watching his high school football players injure themselves using weights. Two years later, he designed the band and its accompanying Jump Stretch equipment (which athletes use to perform squats). Then began a long process of finding and losing manufacturers for his product.
Hartzell is the first to admit that Flex Band has not become a household name like other similar products, such as Thera-Band. After 19 years of struggling, losing his home and life savings and more ups and downs than a basketball, though, he is hoping that his lean times are over. Last year, he went over the $1 million sales mark for the first time.
``I lost money for 19 years. But I believed in what I was doing. With three kids, there were Christmases and birthdays where I had no money for gifts. But through all the trials and hardships, my wife stayed with me.''
With recent articles in Men's Fitness, Reader's Digest, Powerlifting USA and other national magazines and a few deals pending, Hartzell believes that he is on the verge of a major breakthrough.
Record-breaker
If Dr. Larry Miller, a 48-year-old Twinsburg dentist, has his way, that day shouldn't be too far off. ``This is the best tool I've ever seen for stretching, flexibility, strength training and rehabilitation,'' he said. ``It's hard to convince someone that a band can do so much.''
Miller, who is also a power lifter, credits Hartzell with helping him bench-press a record-breaking 480 pounds at the Master's National tournament in 2000. Since then, he has lifted 535 pounds at the gym -- not bad for a guy who weighs 165 pounds.
``The bands provide a totally different response to the muscles,'' Miller said. ``It's quick and explosive. You lift faster and speed is extremely important for power lifters.'' Miller uses the bands daily for stretching and twice a week for lifting, by attaching them to the weight bars.
Wade tells of a Stark County high school basketball player who added more than six inches to his vertical leap by using the Flex Band for six weeks.
Ankle stunt
The Flex Band is not just for athletes and power lifters.
Shimmel said that the band has helped patients with chronic back pain, who previously did not get relief ``no matter what we did.''
Another happy side effect is that patients don't skip stretching as they do with static stretches. ``The compliance rate is great,'' Wade said. ``It's easy, convenient, space effective and takes way less time than the traditional program.''
Shimmel tells patients to experiment with different stretches, as long as they're not reinjuring an old injury. ``You're limited only by your imagination. I tell patients to go to pain, not through pain.''
At 62, Hartzell is a walking billboard for his product. His ankles are so strong that once, while demonstrating his jump-on-your-twisted-ankle routine, he crashed through the table he was standing on. He emerged unscathed. While he couldn't touch his toes when he played college football in 1960, today he is flexible enough that he can do a full split.
``My generation has horrible flexibility,'' he said. ``I'm 62. I don't have a twinge of pain in my body. I'm the best example of the product.''
http://www.jumpstretch.com/
After long struggle, Flex Band flexes marketplace muscle
By Thrity Umrigar
Akron Beacon Journal staff writer
Karen Schiely, ABJ
Abbie Yates of the University of Akron cheerleading team strains agains a Flex Band held by teammates. One user says the device is good for stretching, flexibility, strength training and rehabilitation.
Their designer casually refers to them as ``rubber bands.''
Indeed, they look like giant rubber bands, in shades of red, black and purple.
To hear their supporters tell it, though, the latex-and-rubber exercise Flex Band can do everything, from helping older adults gain more flexibility, to helping a Twinsburg dentist break a world record by bench-pressing 480 pounds.
You can loop the thick belt around your back and toes to do leg lifts or tie it on a door knob to stretch your back muscles. Flex Bands are used for developing strength as well as flexibility.
Twenty-two years after they were designed by ##### Hartzell, a retired football coach in the Youngstown area, the Flex Band has suddenly gained popularity. Everybody's using them, from the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees, to the University of Akron's cheerleading team and the Youngstown State University and Ohio State's football teams.
Flex Bands come in six different sizes and resistance. They are 41 inches long and can stretch up to eight times their length. The wider the band, the more the resistance.
8-year band
Dr. Michael Shimmel, owner of Stow-Kent Chiropractic Clinic on Graham Road in Stow, is a believer. He first learned about Flex Band in the mid-'90s, when the late Jimmy Warfield, trainer for the Indians, gave him one. Shimmel put the belt away and out of his mind. But when a Massillion basketball coach mentioned Flex Band to him a few months later, Shimmel was intrigued.
He spent the next eight Saturdays at Hartzell's enormous all-rubber band gym in Youngstown. ``At that point, I was hooked,'' he said. ``I started doing the same exercises I taught my patients but with the band.''
Shimmel is now Hartzell's top distributor, selling about 3,000 bands a year. The bands provide different levels of resistance, from 25 to 200 pounds of pressure.
Sean Wade, who works as a rehabilitation therapist at Stow-Kent Chiropractic, also swears by the bands. He said athletes and regular people who exercise with the bands are much less likely to injure themselves than those using weights.
Wade has been using the same band for eight years. It is frayed but thanks to technology that constructs the band in layers and does not use seams, it has not torn. Shimmel and Wade have been touting the bands to several local high schools. They demonstrate the product and then Wade performs his tour de force -- he turns his ankle on its side and then jumps on it as hard as he can. Training with the belt has strengthened his ankle to the extent that even this drastic movement does not sprain it.
The demonstrations have worked. Massillion, Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Stow and Tallmadge High Schools all use Flex Band as part of their strength training programs.
Struggle
Hartzell first felt the need for a kinder, gentler workout device in 1978, while watching his high school football players injure themselves using weights. Two years later, he designed the band and its accompanying Jump Stretch equipment (which athletes use to perform squats). Then began a long process of finding and losing manufacturers for his product.
Hartzell is the first to admit that Flex Band has not become a household name like other similar products, such as Thera-Band. After 19 years of struggling, losing his home and life savings and more ups and downs than a basketball, though, he is hoping that his lean times are over. Last year, he went over the $1 million sales mark for the first time.
``I lost money for 19 years. But I believed in what I was doing. With three kids, there were Christmases and birthdays where I had no money for gifts. But through all the trials and hardships, my wife stayed with me.''
With recent articles in Men's Fitness, Reader's Digest, Powerlifting USA and other national magazines and a few deals pending, Hartzell believes that he is on the verge of a major breakthrough.
Record-breaker
If Dr. Larry Miller, a 48-year-old Twinsburg dentist, has his way, that day shouldn't be too far off. ``This is the best tool I've ever seen for stretching, flexibility, strength training and rehabilitation,'' he said. ``It's hard to convince someone that a band can do so much.''
Miller, who is also a power lifter, credits Hartzell with helping him bench-press a record-breaking 480 pounds at the Master's National tournament in 2000. Since then, he has lifted 535 pounds at the gym -- not bad for a guy who weighs 165 pounds.
``The bands provide a totally different response to the muscles,'' Miller said. ``It's quick and explosive. You lift faster and speed is extremely important for power lifters.'' Miller uses the bands daily for stretching and twice a week for lifting, by attaching them to the weight bars.
Wade tells of a Stark County high school basketball player who added more than six inches to his vertical leap by using the Flex Band for six weeks.
Ankle stunt
The Flex Band is not just for athletes and power lifters.
Shimmel said that the band has helped patients with chronic back pain, who previously did not get relief ``no matter what we did.''
Another happy side effect is that patients don't skip stretching as they do with static stretches. ``The compliance rate is great,'' Wade said. ``It's easy, convenient, space effective and takes way less time than the traditional program.''
Shimmel tells patients to experiment with different stretches, as long as they're not reinjuring an old injury. ``You're limited only by your imagination. I tell patients to go to pain, not through pain.''
At 62, Hartzell is a walking billboard for his product. His ankles are so strong that once, while demonstrating his jump-on-your-twisted-ankle routine, he crashed through the table he was standing on. He emerged unscathed. While he couldn't touch his toes when he played college football in 1960, today he is flexible enough that he can do a full split.
``My generation has horrible flexibility,'' he said. ``I'm 62. I don't have a twinge of pain in my body. I'm the best example of the product.''
http://www.jumpstretch.com/
