Home training with resistance bands is great because you can use them just about anywhere. There are also tons of exercises that can be executed to assist with achieving your goals such as fat loss and lean muscle gain. Resistance bands offer a large variety of movements to choose from, and everything is done with very minimal equipment.
Being at home and not able to leave freely doesn’t mean you have an excuse to not exercise regularly. Without a good habit of exercising, even having a gym membership would be a waste of money. So let’s get to it!
Why Choose Resistance Bands?
Resistance bands are a great alternative to purchasing weights. For one, they are cheaper and take up a lot less space. You also don’t have the worry of a child accidentally trying to pick the weight up, and then dropping it on their foot. Bands are also easy to fold up and put away in a drawer, or you can place them on a coat hook, to keep them out of the way
Aside from the convenience of storage, you also get more exercise variations and better-controlled movements. Dumbbells make it easy for you to just go through the motions, but the resistance band makes it to where you need control to resist the band from slinging back at you.
This control of the movement allows more muscles to be used and develop better, which makes them much more effective than having a couple of dumbbells. Moreover, there are ways to adjust the band in several variations to increase or decrease the resistance.
Effective Resistance Band Exercises
The following exercises use various muscle groups and can be combined into a full workout to work the entire body. Remember, strength, muscle, and mobility all come from resistance band exercises.
Banded Squats
There are two variations of doing squats with bands. One is using a pull up assist band, and the other is with a hip circle. The exercise targets your legs as a whole, but mainly the quads, thighs, and glutes.
Using a pull up assist band, place one side of the circle on the floor and step equally over it with your feet covering the band. Feet should be around shoulder-width apart. Grasp the free side with your hands and rotate your palms up and by your upper chest.
Execute by keeping your upper body upright and bending at your hips and knees simultaneously. The difference with the hip circle banded squat is you place the band over your knees since the circle is smaller. Simply squat ensuring your knees open up against the resistance.
Banded Deadlifts
This exercise is full body and targets your hamstrings, lower back, upper back, and glutes as well. This is an easy exercise to execute with a pull up assist band.
Place the long band on the floor and step on top with the band below your feet standing shoulder-width apart. The bands should have equal length hanging out to the side of your foot. Keeping your lower back straight, bend at your hips to grasp the band ends.
Allow your arms to stay fully extend throughout the whole exercises. Simply stand tall holding the bands and control them back down. You can make the resistance slightly harder standing an inch or two wider, or you can stand narrower to decrease the resistance.
Banded Lunges
Targets your quads, thighs, calves, and glutes.
You can perform this exercise with a hip circle, but for better resistance, the speed band set is better. This type of band is two cuffs attached to the ends of a tube resistance band. You can place them up on your thighs providing more resistance to your legs while lunging. Basically, this does not just have use as a sprinting tool.
Place the speed band cuffs above your knee’s mid-thigh. Standing straight up with feet aligned, you take an exaggerated step forward with your toes pointed in that direction. Lunge into this position keeping the back-foot toe on the floor facing forward as well. Do not let your knee hit the floor!
Bring the forward foot back into place and either alternate to the next foot, or execute all repetitions on one side before switching.
Banded Shoulder Press
This is a great upper body exercise for shoulder strength and mobility, but also targets your arms and upper back as well. Not a difficult exercise to execute, this is performed using the pull up assist band.
Place one side of the band down and stand on top with feet shoulder-width apart. Grasp the other side of the band and rotate to where your palms are facing up by your shoulders. Execute by simply pushing your palms overhead extending your arms fully. Control back down and repeat.
Resistance Band Exercises are Worth it!
The four exercises given make it easy for you to perform a home workout whenever you want, and if you go to the park with your kids you can even do them while they play. This type of equipment really is easy and effective for workouts and does not take advanced exercise knowledge to execute.
Definitely invest in a few bands to get the options for an entire workout. An easy home gym to make really is just a view elastic bands of varying colors and lengths. While the thought is on your mind, grab a pair today and start practicing the basic exercises given to move on to further exercises you can implement into a workout.
