Resistance bands have emerged as a popular and versatile tool in the fitness world, offering a convenient and effective way to achieve weight loss and improve overall health. These lightweight, elastic bands provide varying levels of resistance during strength workouts, making them suitable for individuals of all fitness levels. Whether you're looking to build muscle, burn calories, or rehabilitate from an injury, resistance bands can be a valuable addition to your fitness routine.
What are Resistance Bands?
Resistance bands, also known as exercise bands or elastic bands, are essentially large rubber bands that provide resistance during strength training exercises. They come in various shapes, sizes, and resistance levels, with thicker bands offering greater resistance. Unlike dumbbells or weight machines, resistance bands maintain constant tension on your muscles throughout the entire range of motion, activating even the smaller stabilizing muscles.
Damien A. Joyner, an American Council on Exercise (ACE) certified personal trainer and the founder of Incremental Fitness in San Diego, explains that resistance bands can be used to target all major muscle groups in your body, including your chest, back, shoulders, arms, glutes, legs, and core.
Rebecca Ditwiler, DPT, a physical therapist and an associate professor at the University of South Florida School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences in Tampa, highlights the stretchiness of resistance bands as their key feature. As you pull the band to elongate it, the resistance increases, providing a challenging workout for your muscles.
Health Benefits of Resistance Band Workouts
Resistance band workouts offer a wide range of health benefits, making them an attractive option for individuals seeking to improve their fitness and well-being.
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Increased Strength
Research has shown that exercise bands can be just as effective as free weights and weight machines for stimulating strength gains. Resistance bands provide a versatile and adaptable way to challenge your muscles and build strength.
Maintain Muscle Mass
After the age of 30, individuals begin to lose 3 to 5 percent of their muscle mass per decade. Strength training, including training with resistance bands, can help stall and even reverse this loss. A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies in older adults found that those who exercised with resistance bands for 40 to 60 minutes more than three times a week for at least 12 weeks significantly improved their muscle mass.
Aid in Rehabilitation from Injury or Surgery
Resistance bands are often used in rehabilitation programs to aid in recovery following an injury or surgery. Ditwiler explains that resistance bands allow you to perform a low-impact resistance exercise program that's safe and effective for strengthening. There's a lower risk of injury if you drop a resistance band on your foot compared to dropping a dumbbell. Additionally, it's easier to adjust the resistance when using a band by changing the length or using a band of a different thickness.
Improved Heart Health
Muscle-strengthening workouts, including those performed with resistance bands, help improve blood pressure and lower your risk of hypertension and heart disease. Research has found that strength training with resistance bands improves measures of heart health, including blood pressure, in the elderly.
Resistance Band Workouts and Weight Loss
Resistance band training is a form of strength training, and therefore, may not burn as many calories per session as cardio. However, resistance band workouts do promote gains in muscle mass, which can offer fat-loss benefits.
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Michael Matthews, an ISSA-certified personal trainer and the author of Muscle for Life: Get Lean, Strong, and Healthy at Any Age!, explains that your metabolism will speed up since muscle is metabolically more active than fat. In one study, 24 weeks of weight training led to a 4 percent increase in calories burned at rest in women and a 9 percent increase in men.
While the added calorie burn from resistance band training is modest, research suggests that combining strength training with calorie restriction or aerobic exercise can make your weight loss program more effective than calorie restriction or aerobic exercise alone.
Essential Equipment for Resistance Band Workouts
To effectively incorporate resistance bands into your workout routine, you'll need a few essential pieces of equipment.
Resistance Bands
You can purchase resistance bands individually or in a set. A resistance band set offers the advantage of having bands in various resistance or tension levels, including light, medium, and heavy. You may find that you need a lighter band for upper-body exercises and a heavier one for lower-body exercises. Brands typically color-code the tension levels of their resistance bands, but the colors can vary from one brand to another. Always check the label to ensure you're getting the right resistance level.
Door Attachment
Many exercises require you to tie one end of a band to an anchor point like a doorknob, beam, or pole. If you don't have a sturdy anchor point available, a door anchor can be a great investment. A door anchor is a heavy-duty strap that attaches to a resistance band and can be shut inside a door to provide a secure base for exercises.
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Ankle or Wrist Cuff
An ankle or wrist cuff is a padded cuff that wraps around your ankle or wrist and attaches to a resistance band. It provides a secure anchor for targeted resistance band exercises.
Exercise Mat
An exercise or yoga mat offers cushioning and a nonslip surface for your resistance band workout. It can also protect your knees and back during floor exercises and protect your floor from sweat.
Getting Started with Resistance Band Workouts
If you're new to resistance band workouts, here are a few tips to get you started:
Start Low
Begin with two 30-minute resistance band workouts per week. You can add more training sessions once you're ready. Make sure to give your muscles 48 hours to repair and recover in between each workout. This will decrease injury risk.
According to the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), you may be overdoing the exercise if you feel more fatigued than usual, can't do your workouts at your usual intensity, or your sleep starts to suffer. Take these as signs to use lighter bands or take more recovery between workouts.
Target Every Major Muscle Group
If you're doing two workouts per week, you should be targeting every major muscle group (the chest, back, shoulders, arms, abdominals, buttocks, and legs) each session. This is in line with the government recommendations, which advise doing at least two days of full-body strength training per week.
To ensure you're working all major muscle groups, Matthews recommends following a push-pull-squat format each session. At least one of your exercises should be a type of a squat, an upper-body push like a push-up, and an upper-body pull like a bent-over row.
Get Professional Help
If you've never done a strength training program before, Steven E. Mayer, MD, a sports medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine in Naperville, Illinois, recommends working with a certified personal trainer, who can teach you how to use bands correctly. If hiring a personal trainer isn't financially feasible, use instructional videos from certified fitness professionals to learn proper exercise technique.
Intensifying Your Resistance Band Workouts
Once you're comfortable with resistance band workouts, you can intensify them to continue making strength gains. Here are a few ideas:
Use a Thicker Band
Switch to the next-thickest band to increase the resistance of your exercise.
Move Slowly
Perform the exercises at a slower pace, making sure to move through the full range of motion with each repetition to activate the most muscle.
Do Different Exercise Variations
Progress to more challenging variations of a given exercise. For example, if you started with a banded squat, you can advance to a banded squat jump.
Nutrition for Resistance Band Workouts
As with other workouts, resistance band training calls for specific nutrition strategies for the best results. Lauren Antonucci, RDN, a board-certified sports dietitian and the author of High-Performance Nutrition for Masters Athletes, provides the following tips:
Before
Eat 6 to 8 grams of protein, plus a small amount of carbohydrates before your workout. For example, a hard-boiled egg and half of a banana or a small container of flavored Greek yogurt. The carbs offer up energy, while the protein provides amino acids to help you build muscle.
You don't necessarily have to eat anything if you're exercising first thing in the morning, but a snack can be helpful if you tend to feel ravenous when you wake up. Go for something small if you only have 10 to 15 minutes to eat something before your workout. For example, 4 ounces of fruit juice, a small banana, or a handful of grapes.
During
There's little reason to eat during a resistance band workout, unless it lasts longer than 70 minutes. In that event, you could benefit from a carb boost mid-workout, which can be accomplished by sipping on a sports drink.
After
Ideally, you'll eat a usual meal such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner after your workout. This meal should include a mix of complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and protein. Think oatmeal with hemp seeds or a palm-size piece of chicken atop a salad with olives or an olive oilâbased dressing.
If it's not time for a meal, squeeze in some nutrition with a small post-workout snack, such as a whole-wheat tortilla with hummus or plain Greek yogurt with walnuts and honey.
Sample Resistance Band Exercises
Here are a few simple resistance band exercises you can try:
- Chest press: Wrap the resistance band behind your back, holding both ends with your hands. Push the band out in front of you as you straighten your elbows.
- Squats: Stand on the resistance band and grab both ends with your hands. While standing in a squatted position and holding the band, extend your knees up to a standing position.
- Biceps curl: While standing, step on the resistance band. With your arms at your side holding the band, draw up your hand by bending at the elbow.
- Elastic band rows: Attach the resistance band securely to a door. Holding the band with both hands, draw back the band as you bend your elbows.
- Clamshells: Lie on your side, one leg on top of the other with your knees slightly bent. Loop a resistance band around both thighs. Keeping your feet together, lift your top knee.