Can you resist resistance bands?

Ok, we’re going to take a minute to talk about the beautiful, the glorious, the wondrous things called resistance bands.

Seriously, your life’s about to change.

3 reasons you should totally get on board:

• They’re cheap.
• You can use them ANYWHERE.
• They’re easy to incorporate into all kinds of workouts.

via GIPHY

Resistance bands are the bomb because you can get in a great workout no matter where you are. Hotel room? Check. Park? Check. Hockey field? Check. They take up pretty much zero room in your bag (backpack, suitcase, whatever!) and really up your workout game.

You can also use them in your general training – they allow you to build strength without needing to be in a gym. Many people don’t (or can’t) use a gym for a variety of reasons (cost, location, don’t know what the hell they need to do with all those machines and serious looking weights…). Resistance bands allow you to build strength, wherever you are, at very minimal cost.

Finally, I also use them pretty much before every game or running session to activate my glutes! Doing a set of exercises to “wake up” the right muscles helps to prevent injury.

Now, I know there are basically three groups sitting here reading this…

The first are like “FITNESS POST? NOPE.” But, if this is you, please keep reading. I mean, you’ve already got this far, right? Let me convince you why you should *think* about using resistance bands. This might be the thing that “clicks” for you. Because one of the great things about resistance bands is that you can get a great, low impact, varying intensity session with them!

The middle crew are the ones going “I’m interested…”

And the third are the ones who already know where it’s at. They’re sitting back smugly, because they already use bands and know how awesome they are. If this is you,there’s some great ways to use the bands that you may not have thought of before below!

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Types of resistance bands

Ok I’m going to preface this with the fact that it is SURPRISINGLY difficult to find images of resistance bands on the web that aren’t subject to copyright… But if you google resistance bands you’ll see the different types you can get.

All of them come at multiple thicknesses, which means different strengths, so that you can use different bands for different things or increase the “weight” as you get stronger.

You can buy resistance bands at your local sports store, or online at Amazon or eBay (make sure the website is specific to your region so that you get sellers that ship to you!).

Resistance bands pretty much fall into 3 categories:

Small looped (mini-bands)

Super portable, very versatile and great for glute activation.

Large looped

Super versitile and still portable, although they are a little larger.

Un-looped

These come in a bunch of different types – therabands are the flat stretchy types that you can cut to any length (generally available from the physio). You can also get ones with handles and ones that look like little tubes.

Resistance band workouts

It might seem like there are a lot of videos below, but I’ve tried to include one for a both the short bands (mini-bands) and longer bands, so that no matter which bands you have, there’s a video you can use!

For beginners

A great place to start if you’ve never used bands before. The video explains the technique you should be aiming for and shows the workout in real-time so you can follow along. And it’s only 10 minutes!

Next step

Warm up / Glute activation

Longer bands

Running Technique

Mini-bands…

Longer bands…

Strength

Stretching / Flexibility

Bands are a great aid for getting a good deep stretch that you might not be able to get (or hold!) without some assistance. The longer bands are best for this but you can also use the mini-bands too!
Do these stretches either after your game or session, or on a rest/recovery day to improve flexibility.

So, hopefully you’re convinced that investing in some resistance bands is a good idea! Or at the very least that there are some ways to incorporate them into your active warm up/workout/cool down 🙂

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