5 WAYS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR RESISTANCE BANDS - WHATEVER YOUR GOALS
1. USE RESISTANCE BANDS TO INCREASE YOUR STRENGTH, BUILD MUSCLE AND TONE UP
Resistance bands come in different sizes, shapes and strengths. Whichever one you have, each type of band plays a part in building muscle, toning up and increasing strength.
Bands work under the same principles as free weights or weights machines - they cause your body to work under resistance or tension in order to start building muscle. Bands can be used for upper body workouts, lower body workouts and even intense core sessions.
Whether you’re using bands alongside weights or as part of a body weight routine, each difficulty of band exerts a particular amount of force on your muscles, causing your body to work hard and causing you to work towards your goals!
2. RESISTANCE BANDS ARE VITAL IN IMPROVING YOUR FLEXIBILITY
Whilst flexibility and mobility are two different things (flexibility is related to how far your muscles move and mobility is how your joints move) both can be improved by using a resistance band.
Let’s take a specific example - if you wanted to increase your flexibility – let's say you want to learn to touch your toes - you need to hold appropriate stretches (posterior chain stretches) for between 30 to 60 seconds to allow your muscles to relax and stretch further into your desired position. However, if you can’t already touch your toes, how do you even get into that position, never mind hold it for 60 seconds?! That’s where your band comes in.
You may have seen someone being stretched by their trainer or coach - this is what we called passive stretching - however you can do this with just your band. It replaces that additional person and lets us work on increasing our flexibility without anyone else being there. This means you have control over the tension of the stretch, the position and how long you want to hold it for. Great if you like working out by yourself or don’t want to ask a random person at the gym to help!
3. USE RESISTANCE BANDS TO INCREASE THE DIFFICULTY OF YOUR WORKOUT (WITH OR WITHOUT WEIGHTS)
Maybe you don’t have any weights available right now or maybe you have a few but they’re not heavy enough. You’ve reduced your rest times, started doing more sets and even increased the reps you’re doing but let’s face it, you don’t want to be doing a 2 hour workout just to feel like you’ve worked “kind of” hard. So… let’s add a resistance band!
Whether you’re using two tins of beans as weights or you’ve got proper dumbbells, there are SO many different exercises you can do with resistance bands to increase difficulty. Keep an eye out for the articles, videos and demos we’ll be doing in future but as a basic guide - wrap them around yourself or the weight to make your workouts more challenging. Ideal if you don’t have the finances or space at home to get a full set of dumbbells!
4. REHABBING AN INJURY? YOU NEED RESISTANCE BANDS.
We can’t stress the importance of this enough - resistance bands are so important when rehabbing an injury! Depending on your injury you’ll often see them recommended by doctors, surgeons, physiotherapists and trainers. Whether you’ve broken a bone, damaged ligaments or even had an operation - bands will set you on your way to recovery like nothing else.
Here are just some of the benefits of resistance bands.
• When recovering from injury they’re a safer way to add resistance than free weights
• You decide on the range of motion, speed and direction of the exercise meaning you’re fully in control
• They’re low impact while still being challenging
• You can be very specific with what muscles you’re working and only use the area you want to rehab
• They can be used to rehab injuries in many areas including shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles
*Please get guidance from your healthcare provider and/or trainer before you try to rehabilitate any injuries you may have*
5. USING BANDS TO ASSIST YOU RATHER THAN CHALLENGE YOU.
Resistance bands aren’t always there to challenge you - they’re also there to help you! Treat your bands as your own training assistant and you’ll really start to progress in your workouts.
There are two main ways your bands can help you train.
Firstly, they can make exercises easier. For example, loop your long band around a pull up bar, place one knee, two knees or a foot, inside the band and let it take some of your weight. This is great if you want to increase the number of reps you can do of pull ups or chin ups. Even if you are totally new to upper body work you can start with negative pull ups with the help of your long resistance bands.
Resistance bands can also help your flexibility. Where you would normally need a partner or trainer to move your body into those hard-to-reach positions (let’s face it, on some days that includes touching our toes!) your bands can help you get set up. Once you’ve found your position, the bands will help you stay there and begin to develop your flexibility - particularly important to avoid injury in everyday life. If you’re unsure about how to develop your flexibility please ask a trainer for help or keep an eye out for our upcoming workouts!
