There’s a lot of hype around the use of Resistance Bands lately, but there is some method in all of the madness and truth behind some of the claims.
At BP we use resistance bands in warm ups, progressive, regressive and rehabilitation exercises. They really are that versatile! Resistance bands are colour coded and come in a variety of resistances which again is helpful to us as trainers because we can utilise them to boost a clients gains, or assist with exercises, or even phases of a particular exercise a client may be struggling with.
Using resistance bands in your warm up is a great way to promote joint stability and safely encourage your nervous system to allow greater ranges of movement through joints by relaxing and contracting the correct muscles in the appropriate way to perform the exercise or movement.
They’re also a great way to enhance a workout for instance, pretty much every new client I see struggles with a basic pull up purely because up until attempting it the body has no requirement to be good at, or strong enough to perform it. By introducing a resistance band to help offset the clients mass against their own strength a pull up can be safely performed. This process can be repeated for a number of exercises. Resistance bands can also be used to make an exercise more difficult, or to train better control in the eccentric part (putting down part) of an exercise. This eccentric load over time will develop concentric power and allow you to be able to move higher loads, but that’s a different story!
Resistance bands are an effective and functional addition to any gym goers arsenal with no drawbacks we can think of.