Exercise bands are one of the most convenient ways to workout at home. They are light, versatile, and can help you easily build muscle and get stronger without ever setting foot in a gym.
But, many band workouts and band exercises are designed poorly. In fact, most band exercises completely miss three crucial components that end up increasing your risk for injury and sabotaging your workout results.
Fortunately, there are some easy fixes to these issues once you are able to identify what the issues are.
1. The Angle Of The Band
The first big issue with most band exercises is they aren’t considering the angle that the band is pulling.
It is well known that as the band stretches, it will have more tension going through it, but most people completely fail to consider the angle the band is pulling at when it stretches.
Why this matters is because a band that is more stretched DOES NOT automatically mean it is more difficult to do the exercise, i.e. there is more resistance. That is only part of the equation.
The other part is the angle that the band is pulling at during the specific exercise you are doing.
If you don’t consider the angle of the band during an exercise, you may be stretching it thinking you are making the exercise harder, when in fact it is becoming easier because of the angle you are stretching it at.
In order to get the best results from your band exercises, you need to make sure you are pulling the band at the correct angle.
2. The Speed Of The Exercise
The second big issue with most band exercises is they are done far too fast.
One of the nice things about bands is you don’t have to be as concerned about creating momentum when you do an exercise because you aren’t moving much of a mass (compared to when you lift weights). As such, many people take this as a green light to do band exercises much faster than they normally would do an exercise.
The problem with this is just because there isn’t much added mass, there is still the mass of your arms, legs, and trunk that needs to be considered, and those can create momentum during an exercise.
What we see happen far too often is when people move fast doing a band exercise, they end up moving too far for their joints and end up creating excessive soreness and even injury.
Instead, you want to make sure you are moving slowly when you are working out, even when you are doing band exercises. Not only will this help you control the motion better, it will help ensure that you are only using the amount of motion that is right for your body.
3. The Motion Of The Exercise
The third big issue we see when people do band exercises is they do the same motions or exercises with the bands that they do without the bands when they exercise with dumbbells.
Bands offer a very unique opportunity to challenge your body with a variety of motions that aren’t really feasible with dumbbells or other forms of exercise equipment.
And, while there is certainly value to sticking with the basic motions you are accustomed to, there is a lot of potential to challenge and strengthen your body in ways that it hasn’t been exposed to before using bands.
So, instead of just doing curls and lateral raises with your bands, add in some new movements that you don’t do with dumbbells to strengthen your body in new and fun ways!
Each of these three major issues can be easily overcome with just a little bit of strategy and planning for your workouts.
But, we know that many people don’t have the time, energy, or interest to think of all this. They literally just want to do the workout and get the results.
That is exactly why we created the Better With Bands program.
This program helps you avoid these three major issues, as well as many others, by implementing our four Exercise For Life Principles into a fun series of band workouts you can do right from home.
You can get access to the entire Better With Bands program for free for the next 30 days when you start your free trial of The Exercise For Life Membership.
Just click here to get signed up, and once you are in, head to the Better With Bands program located within the Strength Training programs in the Workouts area.
Start Your Free Trial Of The Exercise For Life Membership Today!
In strength and health,
Julie & Charlie
