Exercise Bands are versatile, yet inexpensive fitness equipment that can be used to do a wide range of exercises. In fact, most fitness trainers call it a complete home gym system.
Why Fitness / Exercise Band for Workout?
Most people are not sure what to do with a resistance band and how to use it; for them free weights and machines are the equipment to be used when it comes to strength training.
- But then there are several advantages of using a Resistance Band for workout:
- They can easily be carried around, when travelling.
- You can do it at home or in a hotel room.
- It adds variety & helps increase coordination
- They’re suitable for all fitness levels, and above all, they’re inexpensive
It’s used to increase the range of motion and movement of the body. The band works by making the body work harder on the areas where the bands are attached and by making more tears for the body to repair and build muscle.
Exercise Bands: Various Types
- Exercise bands can be flat elastic straps or elastic tubes.
- You can also find flat bands for suspension training but these are not the fitness bands you can use to reproduce the exercises you are used to at the gym or at home with weights.
- Various resistance levels depending on your fitness level, strength and types of exercises you will need exercise bands of different resistance levels.
- Manufacturers generally use colors to identify their bands strength.
- You will at least want to get a light, medium and heavy resistance bands.
- Tension is not always stated, but some brands tell you how much tension you get for each of their bands (5 pounds, 12 pounds, 20 pounds, etc).
- The best fitness bands systems allow you to clip several bands to the handles to get even more resistance, so you can progress on an exercise and add more and more tension, as you would with free weights by adding more plates.
Exercise Bands: A Complete Home Gym System
Working out with exercise bands is a serious alternative to lifting free weights or using machines, as they are more versatile and thus gives a great training variety for all your muscles. The other important benefit is they are portable and don’t need much space to be stored wherever you are. At home or at work as well as in vacation, you can still do your workout and hide them under the bed or in a bag (which may be provided by the manufacturer).
You can perform any kind of exercise with resistance bands, and get a full body workout. You can make upper body exercises as well as lower body exercises. Even the small stabilizer muscles will be trained, which will strengthen them and help to prevent injuries. What you will find is that tension is constant during all your rep.
Common upper body exercises are biceps curls, upright rows, side and front raises and shoulder press. You just need to step on the band and then lift the handle to perform these exercises. You should also see if any kind of door attachment or door anchor is included with your set. You really need this as you will be able to perform much more exercises like chest press or kick backs for your triceps, rows and pulls too.
As for lower body exercises, you can perform squats just by standing on the tube and lift the handles up to your shoulders as you would if a bar was standing on them. Then squat normally, you will feel the tension through the whole movement. You can also attach the tube with the door anchor and then to your ankle (an ankle strap can be included with your set). You can then perform hamstrings curls lying on your tummy. You can also lift in any direction to train your thigh.
There are so much more exercises you can do with exercise bands, most manufacturers include a DVD or manual with over a hundred of exercises you can do. Plus you can work all your muscles, shoulders, arms, chest, abs, back, legs… Training with exercise bands is a smart thing to do. The price is inexpensive (starting less than $50) and the value you get for your money is huge, providing you get a solid set from a reputed company. The resistance can really add up and you can train for muscle building as well as fat loss by having your own creative workouts.
Top Reasons to Use Exercise bands
Exercise bands, also known as resistance bands, are a great addition to any workout routine and perfect for the frequent traveler who may not always have access to regular exercise machines or a gym. Exercise bands help to strengthen the body and in particular, the upper body muscles. They are easy to use and because of their durability and portability you can take them pretty much anywhere, even if you travel halfway around the world.
These bands are very easy to use. In most cases, you simply stretch the center of the band underneath your feet, and holding one handle in each hand, pull your hands up towards the top of your head. This creates resistance, and forces you to strain and work out your muscles in order to pull the band upwards. Exercise bands help when you want to work out but avoid adding a lot of bulk to your frame. For women, the resistance bands are very popular because most women want to get in shape and more fit but without reaching body builder standards.
There are many fun and easy ways to incorporate resistance bands into your everyday workouts. One idea is to use them when doing jumping jacks. This way you can still get a full body workout but you are adding in the resistance bands and making the workout that much more challenging. You can add as much or as little resistance as you want; the more resistance, the more intense the workout.
You can even use them when doing crunches. Simply stretch the resistance bands apart as you perform a sit-up, then release the bands by allowing your hands to go closer together as you exhale and go back to your starting position on the floor. You will notice, if you focus on the target muscle area and perform the exercises properly, that each rep is much more intense than without the resistance bands.
Exercise bands are the perfect addition to any workout if you are looking to make the exercises more challenging for yourself and tone up faster. Using a variety of bands is your best bet, so you are always switching it up and never reaching a plateau.
Depending on whether you aim to build bulk or just want to tone up, you can use the resistance bands to add something new to your regular workout routine. You can find exercise or resistance bands at most exercise supply stores for home use and most gyms have a few sets available as well, depending on where you plan to work out.
Develop Your Lats With Exercise Bands!
You can perform hundreds of different exercises with exercise bands, and of course back rows are one of them. It will require a bit of stability from your part but it’s easy to execute. So let’s get to thee back rows with exercise bands.
1. First you need a stationary object, a sturdy post or a door anchor (this is an attachment system that can be provided with certain resistance bands set). Wrap the band around the object or attach it to the anchor at the height of your belly.
2. With your arms extended, you should bend your knees like you were in a sitting position, not at a 90° angle, but you want to stabilize your posture. Your band tension is going to challenge not only your muscle but your balance. Keep your back straight. You’re in the starting position.
3. Now row by pulling the handles toward your body, keeping your hands at about chest height. These back rows work the lats (latissimus dorsi) muscles. These are large muscles on each side of your back below your shoulders.
Perform 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps, and when you can easily perform 12 reps per set, increase the resistance with a higher tension exercise band. This will strengthen your back primarily but also involves your abs and thighs for stability and your arms in the pulling movement.
Lats are the largest muscle in the back so it’s important to make it strong enough. Their function is to pull arms down and back and to also stabilize your body during many movement and other exercises, like bench press, pushups and shoulders movements too. You can have your lats sore after training these other muscle groups if your back is weak.
Training your lats is also what gives your upper body a “V shape”, so this is obviously great overall. You’re not only getting strength where it matters but sculpt you an impressive body.
Pilates Exercise Bands
Taking your Pilates workout to the next level is very easy with the use of Pilates exercise bands. Many people, especially women have taken up Pilates for health and fitness, but also to achieve a certain look.
Just like men go into the gym to pump iron and build their chests and biceps to look masculine and macho women do the same with Pilates. Obviously women do Pilates not to bulk up. Unlike weight training Pilates isn’t really for building muscle mass.
Pilates has become very popular with women because unlike weight training it helps to elongate muscles and tighten up the body. Almost every woman dreams to be slender and tall. Exercises like Pilates and Yoga can help to achieve this.
Those just starting out with Pilates will do fine to start without Pilates exercise bands. Beginners may find it difficult enough when just starting out. Getting used to the exercise movements can take time. After a few weeks or months, it’s a good to start using Pilates exercise bands.
You may go on the advice of your Pilates instructor or decide when you’re ready. A good time to utilize Pilates exercise bands is when exercises no longer feel difficult. Using exercise straps can help to increase your workout and achieve quicker results.
When you participate in moderate exercise it does very little to burn fat or tone muscle. You might in fact stop seeing improvement when you continue to do moderate exercise. Pilates exercise bands can give you better results even by doing the same exercises.
You can often buy Pilates exercise bands in sets of three. Unlike some of the other exercise straps you might have seen, Pilate’s bands are usually a lot wider and elastic. They are also used a lot differently and with more flexibility.
Each band you get in a set varies in elasticity ranging from easy to hard. Those, using Pilate’s bands for the first time should start with the easy band and work up. You will find that workouts are much harder and your muscles may feel sore as a result. This is normal after a good workout. Be sure to let your body rest for at least a day before you workout again.
It’s natural for people to want to see results quickly. Using Pilate’s bands will certainly help you get there more quickly. For best results, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly.
Finding the Right Exercise Bands
Finding the right resistance or exercise band will largely come down to assessing what you want to do with the band itself. But other factors to consider are the times and places that you exercise as well as your overall health and fitness goals.
Improving Cardio-Vascular Fitness
This is tricky, finding a resistance band that is really useful for cardio training requires 2 main things. Because you’re doing lots of reps you need a comfortable handle that won’t become slippery with perspiration and the ability to change quickly between various tensions of bands in order to keep your heart-rate high and burning calories. Generally you should try to find a Single-Handle resistance band. These systems allow for rapid changing between tensions and exercises so that you’ll maintain your rhythm and be able to push your Cardio-envelope. Multi-Clip systems are probably not the way to go for this.
Also, if you can, find a resistance band with an ergonomic rubber handle. You might not think much of this now, but after doing 4 or 5 circuits and feeling the burn in your muscles, it’s better that your hands are not getting roughed up at the same time.
Building Muscle and Strength Gains
Choose a resistance band with a high level of resistance. There are many companies that make Multi-Clip systems that can do this, however you will have to attach more than 1 cord to your handle each time you exercise and this can become tiresome. Do fewer repetitions and have slightly more rest between sets. This will get you the gains you want, hopefully in quite quick time. Remember to use a band with a high resistance though, this is the key.
Toning Up your Muscles
This is almost a combination of the previous two components. Toning muscle requires burning fat and hence you will need to do a lot of reps with a average tension band, but it also means you need to be straining your muscles all the way through. If your tension is too low this won’t happen. The idea is to put stress on the muscle through the entire repetition, something that resistance bands of all sorts are very good at providing. Again, when burning fat, the advantage has to go to Single-Handle resistance bands because they allow you to maintain an elevated heart-rate throughout your workout while changing between exercises and tensions.
So where can you find resistance bands (in Mumbai or any other city in India?) Nowadays, you can find these at any sports shop, and there’s one in almost every mall. The more popular brand being the ones from Reebok, which comes with instructions/pictures of the various exercises that you can do using these bands.
Here’s a video that shows how to do Full Body Workout using a Resistance Band
Black Mountain Products Resistance Band Set
Black Mountain Products Resistance Band Set with Door Anchor, Ankle Strap, Exercise Chart, and Resistance Band Carrying Case.
A top-selling resistance band set on Amazon, Black Mountain claims the tubes are of surgical grade. There are less frequent complaints of snapping bands than the competition.
The band set includes five resistance bands, door anchor, ankle strap, 2 cushioned foam handles, exercise chart and carrying bag. The lightest band is rated at 2-to-4 lbs. of resistance, while the heaviest is rated at 25-to-30 lbs. The bands can be stacked for additional resistance up to 75 lbs.
Gym-quality construction, Heat sealed seams, with life time warranty, so bands that are snapped within that timeframe will be replaced quickly and without much hassle as Black Mountain has a reputation for good customer service.
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