Resistance Bands
Hope you are all keeping well. Its a roller coaster at the moment, not just of emotions from day to day but the changing levels of restrictions and measures in place. I really am praying we don’t go into a tier 3 lockdown as this effects gyms and fitness venues. Its a disgrace that venues that promote health and well being are lumped in with places such as casinos and betting shops that promote gambling. Gyms have worked hard to ensure their clients are safe and the government should be doing everything it can to support health venues and keep them open.
When we went into Lockdown initially there was a big surge in the demand for home equipment. Many suppliers struggled to keep up with demand for simple bits of kit such as kettle bells and hand weights. Throughout Lockdown I did a daily workout using just 2 litre water bottles, a sock and the occasional towel. I wanted to show that you can use any thing you have at home to make your workouts a bit more challenging.
One of the ways you can add another level of difficulty to your workouts is be adding resistance bands. These are basically big elastic bands varying in levels of resistance. They come in individual lengths or loops of varying sizes and some even have handles at either end. They are usually colour coded for their level of resistance.
I tend to use the small loops for making exercises for runners more challenging as the loop can be placed around your ankles or above your knees to really fire up the glute muscles. The longer ones with the handles are great for upper body or more of an all over workout.
They aren’t expensive and it is a great way to add an extra layer to your work out. This nice little systematic review in 2019 found that ‘Elastic resistance training is able to promote similar strength gains to conventional resistance training, in different population profiles and using diverse protocols.’
This is great news as it does suggest that by using resistance bands you can still get good results and as you can purchase them cheaply to use at home and they don’t require a great gym space, they are an ideal alternative to working out at the gym. I’m certainly not saying ditch your gym membership but if things continue to deteriorate then having some bands on standby may be good forward planning
You can purchase resistance bands from both of these companies and I would recommend starting with medium or firm.
If you want any information on exercising with RBs please get in touch. Don’t miss out on the 10 week Runners Conditioning class that starts on Tuesday 20th at 6.30 pm. Details are on a previous blog on the webpage. Please stay safe folks xx