I love getting the band together at home for quick and convenient movement bouts. Its one of the best ways fir a busy person to get in a bout of total body movement in a very short amount of time.
Think about it. For the price of just about a month of a gym membership, you can get a set of exercise bands that allow you to do well over 600 things.
Yes, 6-zero-zero which I discovered preparing to coach an exercise specific bands workshop I coached. It’s totally a thing, I promise.
Besides, it beats the hell out of putting a five figure cable pulley machine in your house. Throw in some bodyweight exercises, and that's at least 800 things you can do at home.
So bands, love them. Use them for every workout I do, and if there was only one thing you should have in your exercise toy bin at home, its this.
Lucky for you faithful reader, I know a lot of really good resources for this kind of thing. One of the better ones is Kelly Pulizzi, BS, CSCS, CPT, CFSC.
She’s one of my favorite ones, she's been seen in these here blogosphere parts before, and she's someone I feel gets it when it comes to helping the body get stronger so it moves better.
We are teaming up to bring you six incredibly effective band exercises to do at home for a total body hit of fitness awesome. Here you go!
The Exercises
Anti-Rotation Exercise Band Lunges
This exercise will "firmly address" your core and your lower body. It also goes a long way to opening your hips as it takes them in a plane most people don’t move: to the left and to the right. If you want to beat sitting down all day, this can help you take care of that.
It is based on resisting lateral forces through the glutes and core. This is a good thing in your life because it’s where most low back occurrences happen. I have had these occurrences on occasion, you don't want them in your life. This exercise just might help.
Split Stance Bent Over Exercise Band Chop
If you took a blow torch to your glutes while you got kicked in the obliques by a unicorn, you'd have this exercise. I ABSolutely (see what I did there?) have this FML moment as I experience the benefits of this exericse.
I'll tell you what though, it helps both my hip and midback/thoracic mobility a ton which is critical for putting your arms over heard pain free safely. With that said, I can endure the "physicality that I dislike immensely" that this brings.
Split Stance Single Arm Exercise Band Pull
You ain't got a thing if you don't train your diagonal sling. Sort of a reach with that statement, but if you think about it, it does flow nicely. Journalism Major FTW!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this exercise for several reasons. The biggest of which it has a nice way of resetting 40+ years of throwing a baseball with my right hand.
Translation: I rotated my body to the left a ton and stretched out my right lat a wee bit. This exercise undoes that pattern.
It reconnects my upper right back/lat to my left hip, and I feel pretty loosy goosy after I do it. I've never actually met a loose goose (or a funky chicken for that matter), but if I did, I imagine it would move really well from doing this exercise.
If you take these three exercises and apply the following, you get a nice little circuit of suck:
1) Set a timer to move for :30 and rest for :15-:30 x 18 laps. This gives you three laps of each half of these exercises. The math works, or at least it should. Again, Journalism Major for a reason.
2) Do each exercise half.
3) Take three laps to get six total sets done three times.
4) Apologize to your glutes and abs when you're done.
And now, without further ado, because I am a PhD level ado'er, I'm turning you over (or sparing you from me, your mileage will vary) to Kelly. Take it away Coach K!
Kelly's Core Combination
Resistance bands are a tool that everybody should have, no matter where you are at in your strength training journey. I used to think resistance bands were only for beginners or only for rehabilitation exercises.
In my eyes, weights were the only way to improve my strength, so why would I need bands? After a few movements with the right resistances, I quickly proved myself wrong.
Compared to free weights, resistance bands provide constant tension to the muscles being trained. When you lift a free weight, you don't always have that same tension at certain points in the range of motion (For instance, the top of a bicep curl).
Choose a resistance that feels challenging by the time you reach the 8th/10th repetition. This may be through a different band color or thickness.
You should be able to maintain proper form during each repetition, and be able to maintain constant tension.
Here is a circuit that helps to strengthen all of the major muscle groups. For these movements, get a door anchor if you can. If you do not have an anchor, wrapping the bands around a sturdy pole will also suffice.
Pallof Press :
Anti-rotation movements are movements that require you to resist a force that is trying to cause your trunk to rotate. The pallof press is one of my favorite anti-rotation movements because it is so simple, yet effective. At first glance it looks like a chest move but It's sneaky on those obliques!
Start by anchoring a resistance band to a door frame, or tying it around a sturdy pole. Step away from the anchor point just enough to feel tension on the band. With both hands on one handle, press the handle forward, keeping it at chest level, resisting the urge to be pulled towards the anchor point.
Perform 8-10 repetitions on each side.
The squat and row is another simple , yet effective movement for the upper and lower body. You are challenged to maintain trunk stability during the squat, and stay upright for the rows.
Start by going into a squat, while holding the handles of the bands with your arms fully extended. Once you stand back up, pull the left handle towards your left rib cage, followed with the right side.
Try not to rush through any part of this one, especially on those rows!
Perform 8 - 12 repetitions
Resistance Band Hinge
Resistance bands can help you get into that perfect hinge position to strengthen those muscles of the posterior chain. To do the hinge, start by holding your arms straight as you work to push your hips behind you.
Bend your knees slightly as you do this (But not as much as a squat) . From here, push your feet into the ground to stand up tall, try to not pull on the band using your arms, and focus on keeping the tension in your glutes and hamstrings.
Perform 8-10 repetitions
So you there you go. You've got six incredibly effective exercise band movements to work into your weekly home workouts to get that much more out of them.
To that point, I've recently earned the Personal Trainer Development Center Online Trainer Certification. Its pretty awesome, and makes it even easier to train humans online.
If you:
1) Don't have time to exericse.
2) Don't have a focused plan.
3) Need additional motivation to keep you accountable.
I can help you. Drop me a line and let's see what we can cook up. Until then head over to INSTAGRAM to follow Kelly!
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