Many of us work from home or need to be mobile and travel due to work or family commitments or we simply just have a lifestyle that is so active that even though we would like to, getting to the gym isn’t always possible and many of us are struggling with consistency. From this perspective home based workouts deserve a place in our exercise routines and have become a very important part of any health and fitness program.
The question is, can a home based workout be as good as a gym based one? And what equipment should you use?
Some very interesting research shows exercise bands may be as good or even better than traditional gym equipment if you know how to use them correctly.
The reason why is that resistance bands allow us to take advantage of the peak force because they offer continuous resistance. They also allow us to recruit stabilizing muscle groups, and provide extra intensity to already challenging body-weight exercises.
This is exciting because research actually suggests athletes make better strength gains and muscle gains when they train with bands than when they train with dumbbells.
Research also suggests banded exercises are a more powerful tool in combating osteoporosis and rehabilitation or preventing injuries than traditional weights. Let me explain…
Elastic resistance provides continuous tension to the muscles being trained. When you lift a free weight in any direction other than straight up and down, the tension on the muscle can actually be removed at certain points in the range of motion. It comes down to the difference between needing and not needing gravity for resistance.
For example, when doing a biceps curl with a dumbbell, as you curl the weight up, at the very top of the movement the dumbbell is literally falling toward the shoulder. This means that the tension on the biceps has been removed because the dumbbell is no longer being lifted up against gravity by the biceps. When doing a biceps curl with elastic resistance, the tension is present throughout the entire range of motion because the elastic material provides resistance due to its own properties.
This unique characteristic of resistance bands has allowed you to take advantage of the peak force. The peak force is the moment in an exercise during which you are at your strongest and the exercise is at its easiest point. For example, in a traditional chest press we experience it is more difficult when the bar is close to the chest and then it gets progressively easier the higher we push the bar. We are at our strongest towards the end of this movement so the end is the point of peak force.
If we do a banded chest press, instead of it getting easier as we progressively push the bands further away from our chest, it gets harder because the bands are under more and more tension the further we stretch them. This means that we have less resistance at the start of the move and towards the end we have the maximum amount of resistance so we take full advantage of the point in the exercise when we are at our strongest (the peak force). It is this peak force that has been shown in research to be key to greater strength and muscle gains in athletes and better rehabilitation too.
One study published in a 1998 issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine reported that collegiate tennis players who trained using elastic bands significantly increased their shoulder strength as well as the speed of their tennis serve compared to those not using bands.
Another study—this one from Louisiana State University (New Orleans)—discovered that an elastic band training program strengthened the rotator cuff muscle of collegiate baseball pitchers better than a program that used dumbbells.
Apart from all that we of course have the added benefit that bands are easy to put in your bag. They do not weigh much and they are inexpensive to buy.
Are there any downsides?
The biggest downside seems to be that a lot of people find it difficult to know how to use bands to get an effective workout. It takes a bit of knowledge to be able to work out the correct angle to best perform each exercise and how to create the tension that you need to recruit the optimum amount of muscle fiber. Most people need coaching on how to do this type of exercise routine but with a knowledgeable coach I think almost anyone can benefit from doing banded workouts.
