Man doing y flyes with a Mirafit Resistance Band

It’s one of those ultimate fitness questions: do resistance bands actually work? 

The answer in short? Yes.  

And here’s why.  

There are so many benefits to using resistance bands in your workout 

They give you a sustained level of contraction - resistance bands alter the strength curve when training so you’re having to exert more energy right at the beginning of each rep. This means greater contractions which are more progressive.  

They improve mobility - used on their own, resistance bands are a fantastic way to improve mobility, especially shoulder mobility. You can also use them to warm up to help prepare your body for heavy lifting. 

They help you get stronger - when used with weights, resistance bands can help you push past your current one-rep max. They do this by challenging the ‘easier’ parts of the exercise, for example a squat, without straining your muscles.  

They help with pull ups - working up to a pull up using the assisted machine at the gym can be a pretty ineffective way of building strength. However, using a resistance band is much more challenging and will also help you build up the grip strength needed to perform unassisted pull ups down the line.  

How do you exercise with a resistance band? 

Man doing a pass through with a Mirafit resistance band

The way to work with Resistance Bands is to first establish what your goals are. 

Resistance bands can be used in lots of different ways and for different purposes

• To build muscle 

• To increase strength 

• To stretch 

• To improve mobility 

So, you need to employ them in the right ways to make sure you get what you want out of them. 

It’s also important to make sure you’re using the right level of resistance band. If you’re using a band to build strength, you want to make sure the band you’re using is of a high enough level to achieve that. 

And then if you’re looking to build, you want to start incorporating bands into your weight training. They will significantly improve the quality of your exercises, however, and that’s why they’re so important when it comes to progression. 

Can you get a good workout with resistance bands? 

Man doing tricep extensions with a Mirafit Resistance Band

Resistance bands provide a really high-quality workout. Especially when used in the right way. 

If the level of band resistance isn’t high enough on its own, then you can add dumbbells to increase the difficulty. And of course, you can wrap them around your barbell when doing bench presses and squats as well.  

Strength bands have a particularly high level of resistance and go up to a much greater thickness than the tube-style bands. That’s what makes them so good to train with.  

Upper body workout using resistance bands 

Resistance bands are perfect for upper body workouts and are really easy to train with too. They’re also really good for learning to feel what muscles are being used. When you rely on machines, you can end up just going through the motions and not thinking about whether you’re using the muscles you’re intending on targeting or not. 

Resistance bands require you to set everything up from scratch and then learn to feel what’s being worked. This is a great way to develop and will help you when it comes to working with free-weights such as barbells and dumbbells.  

We’ve put together a fantastic upper body workout that uses just resistance bands. You can do this down at the gym or at home. It works all your upper body muscles and is great for building both strength and muscle. 

In the video, we show you the following exercises

• Lateral raises  

• Y-flyes 

• Press ups  

• Seated rows 

• Lat pull downs 

• Bicep curls 

• Front delt raises 

• Shrugs 

• Deadlifts 

• Overhead tricep extensions 

We recommend you do each exercise for a minute with a 30-second rest in-between each set. Make your way through all the exercises and then repeat the full circuit two to three times. 

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Tags: Equipment > Resistance Bands ; Exercise Type > Conditioning ; Misc > Workout