The Benefits Of Working Out At Home With Resistance Bands

Build muscle and lose fat using elastic bands

We've created a workout routine you can do at home, you should check it out: 5-Day Home Workout Routine

We tend to overlook elastic bands because they don't look as "tough" as dumbbells or barbells. However, they have been proven to be as effective as free-weights to help you build strength, size, burn fat... In this article we will explain the benefits of resistance bands and how you can use them in your training.

Elastic band exercises are not only used to train at home, they've been integrated to pro athletes' workouts for years. Ranging from bodybuilders, to football and basketball players.

Research has shown that using resistance bands will allow to help get similar strength and size compared to free-weights. Which means that your muscle fibers don't know if you're using a dumbbell or a resistance band, it just knows whether you're getting close to failure or not. We talk more about effective reps in this article: Understand Hypertrophy: The Best Rep Range To Build Muscle

Training using resistance bands will help get similar benefits as free-weights:

• Increases muscle strength
• Increases muscle size
• Helps with fat loss
• Allows progressive resistance
• Can provide different speeds

The surprising fact about resistance bands is that they will allow you to train your body in ways that free-weights won't.

When we train using a barbell or a dumbbell, we rely on gravity to provide resistance. Which makes you mainly focus on vertical movements. However, elastic bands can help you provide resistance in a horizontal plane, which can help use it for more functional movements such as sports or everyday activities.

It has other benefits than free-weight can't provide:

• Higher time under tension (TUT): when you perform an exercise, your muscle is activated during the entire duration of the movement. Whereas free-weight will only provide tension at certain points of the movement.
• Can't cheat: when you perform a free-weight movement, it is very easy to cheat using momentum to lift the weight. Resistance bands don't allow you to do, which will help you prevent injuries and muscle imbalances.
• Affordable: free-weight can get expensive quickly, especially when you need to have wide range of resistance. Elastic bands tend to be more affordable.
• Easy to store and transport: elastic bands can be carried with you at all times, whereas free-weight can be cumbersome to transport.

Resistance bands can be very beneficial for your home workouts, but they can also be added to your usual weight training.

For example, you could do your traditional bench press and attach a resistance band to add more time under tension and it will also help you target stabilizer muscles that you usually don't focus on when you're only using a barbell.

Research has shown that adding elastic bands will help improve your strength drastically.

• Resistance bands can help you gain strength, build muscle and lose fat.
• Elastic band has similarities with free-weight, but it also has other benefits.
• You can use resistance bands at home using bodyweight exercises or even add tension to your traditional free-weight movements.

• Jaqueline Santos Silva Lopes, Aryane Flauzino Machado, Jéssica Kirsch Micheletti, Aline Castilho de Almeida, Allysiê Priscila Cavina, and Carlos Marcelo Pastre "Effects of training with elastic resistance versus conventional resistance on muscular strength: A systematic review and meta-analysis"
• P A Page, J Lamberth, B Abadie, R Boling, R Collins, R Linton "Posterior Rotator Cuff Strengthening Using Theraband(r) in a Functional Diagonal Pattern in Collegiate Baseball Pitchers"