Strengthen, tone, and get fit with bands! Learn about the major benefits of resistance bands for home workouts, which bands are best, and how to use them to achieve your goals.
When it comes to working out at home, there are a lot of awesome pieces of fitness equipment.
However, resistance bands may just be the best option!
Resistance bands:
- Are cost-effective
- Take up minimal space
- Help strengthen your posterior chain
- Are low-impact
- Provide external, progressive resistance
- Challenge your muscles in the “sticking” spot
- Help beginners learn proper form
- Are easy to use
- Come in a variety of tensions
- Work well for compound movements
- Give the user control
In fact, there is little that resistance bands can’t do!
Strength Training With Bands
Using resistance bands gives you the best bang for your buck when working out at home. Mainly because they:
- Target the back f the body (posterior chain)
- Allow you to progress your workouts through harder tensions
- Challenge your muscles at the hardest point
One of the biggest problems when training at home is the inability to target the upper back muscles (which are important for posture, alleviating back pain, and carrying babies).
Resistance bands allow you to not only target them but use resistance against them too.
Plus, resistance bands come in a variety of different tensions from one that mimics 10lbs to one that mimics 65lbs.
This allows you to scale your workouts appropriately and push harder when you’re ready. It’s this kind of progressive training that gives you the best results.
Lastly, the farther a band is pulled the more tension there is. this makes it so that the hardest part of an exercise (say pulling back in a row) also has the most tension.
An amazing way to engage in the “sticking” spot and really nail down form.
Great For Beginners
Resistance bands are great for beginners because they’re so easy to use! Unlike dumbbells or learning to distribute the weight on a barbell, there’s no major learning curve.
Similarly, they’re naturally low-impact. There’s no major compressive load. This makes them very joint-friendly for anyone just learning or recovering. Likewise, bands are a great option for the elderly as well as anyone rehabbing an injury.
Plus, with bands, you’re in control depending on their tension, how they held, and your stance you can control the challenge. This makes it easy to scale workouts.
Which Bands To Buy
Resistance bands are popular because they’re cost-effective and take up very little space (making them perfect for travel!).
However, there are quite a few styles out there.
When purchasing resistance bands you’ll want to look into “strength” bands.
These bands have a closed-loop and provide better resistance than “pilates” bands which are open. Plus, they come in a better variety of tensions. Most people begin with a yellow or red band for their upper body and scale from there.
Strength bands can also be fixed to a beam or pipe if you’re looking to perform exercises similar to a cable machine.
And while strength bands are crucial, so are mini loops. While you can perform entire workouts with them (like this mini loop circuit here), these bands are most known for their ability to strengthen and tone the glutes.
You can grab both kinds of bands from Prosourcefit.com and use code mamabearfit to save some money.
Do Resistance Bands Actually Work? Can You Get Toned?
You can actually build muscle, lose weight and tone your body with any tool (or none).
Results come from progressive overload (Learn more about progressive overload).
Stimulating your muscles is more about consistent and progressive overload (always pushing and challenging, targeting the muscle in a linear way) which can be done with any equipment (or no equipment).
It’s more about the stimulus and less about the tool.
So, as long as you’re focusing on muscle engagement and challenging that engagement more and more over time, you can build muscle and get toned- even with resistance bands.
Are bands better than a gym?
Resistance bands are a tool, like anything else.
It’s no that they’re better than a gym, just different. Much of it will depend on your fitness goals and availability. If you want to compete in powerlifting or bodybuilding, a gym setup is crucial.
If you want to look lean, lose weight or generally be fit, resistance bands are a good choice.
There’s no one perfect system, it just depends on your personal situation.
How To Use Resistance Bands
Once you purchase your resistance bands, you’ll want to find workouts that fit your goals.
Resistance bands can be used for strength-style workouts, circuit workouts, booty builders, or intervals.
Any kind of workout you can think of, you can do it!
When just getting started with bands, begin by learning the placement for common exercises:
Stepping on the band under your feet for anything overhead. Stepping on it with only one leg to reduce tension in lateral arm movements. Sitting and placing it around your feet in different ways to create tension.
Find workouts you enjoy, watch demonstration videos, and dive in.
Don’t forget to pin these mega benefits of resistance bands!
Resistance bands make it easy to get fit anywhere. They don’t cost much, are an effective way to strengthen and tone, and make it easy for beginners to begin strength training.
Set yourself up for a wicked fitness journey all for under $100.
Shelby aka Mama Bear
Jan
Great! Just what I was looking for to add to the cardio. Thanks for the video on how to do them properly too!
fitasamamabear
No problem! I hope they work for you- there's also some great bodyweight workouts on my youtube if you need more options!