Grab elastic bands to prep for your training sessions and upgrade your lifts.
Do More With is a series highlighting equipment around the Club that can help you reach your fitness goals. In this installment, we highlight resistance bands, available on the Club floor and in Group Fitness Classes.
Resistance bands get a bad rap. They’re often thought of as a starting tool for beginners — and beginners only. That people use them when they can’t handle weight. That they’re too “weak” or can’t connect to the right muscle groups, and that bands are the sole option.
It’s time to reset your perspective. In my years of experience as a Coach at Equinox, I’ve seen first-hand the benefits resistance bands have to offer, whether you’re just starting out or you’re an elite athlete.
Why Train with Resistance Bands
In physical therapy settings and with members newer to fitness, bands are often used to help build a strong foundation. It’s not that the movements performed with them are “easy” since they lack heavy load, like dumbbells or barbells. It’s that they allow for complete control over the tension due to their variable resistance. Say I’m using a light band for triceps extensions. As I extend my arm and tug on the band, the tension increases. I can keep pushing, pushing, and pushing as far as I can go with good form — or until the band snaps. The opposite is true: I can push until the tension becomes too great for my current ability and then slowly back off (without worrying about dropping a dumbbell).
This control is valuable to experienced athletes, too. You’re able to overload the eccentric phase of movement, when your muscles are lengthening while producing force. Think about the extension phase of a biceps curl. Rather than allowing the band to snap your arm back to the starting position, you’ll slowly straighten your arm, fighting the pull of the band. Overloading this portion of the movement can be valuable for muscle growth, research suggests.
Sometimes, the purpose of the band is not necessarily to add extra tension — it's to teach the body how to feel correct tension. Say you’re doing a bodyweight squat and your knees tend to cave inward. That’s generally a sign of tightness on the inside of the leg and weakness on the outside. Now, perform the exercise with a band positioned right above your knees. By keeping the band taut, you're teaching your hips to actually rotate externally, and that’s going to increase glute activation. You’re learning what it takes to keep your knees aligned with your ankles. The band is a training tool for your nervous system, not just a way to beef up the exercise.
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Bands can even assist you through certain movements. Maybe there’s a sticking point in your heavy barbell squat or bench press. You can rig up resistance bands on the rack so they create this spring-like effect to help you push past those weaknesses, but you still get nervous system activation from the heavier weight at the top of the movement. Once the barbell hits that sticking point, you simply have this little extra boost behind it. Over time, it teaches your body how to handle that load more appropriately.
How to Use Resistance Bands
Resistance bands allow you to light up all the tiny, often-overlooked stabilizing muscles, so they’re a perfect addition to your warm-up routine. The goal is to increase blood flow and body temperature and wake up your muscles and joints. In my opinion, it’s essential to focus on the shoulders and hips, joints that tend to need extra TLC. Try internal and external shoulder rotations, pull-aparts, banded distractions, and monster walks in all directions.
When deciding which “strength” of resistance band to use, ask yourself: How much tension do I want to feel with this movement, and when? If you want to feel tension pick up mostly at the end of your range of motion, you might go for a lighter band. If you want to feel the tension building right at the beginning of the movement, opt for a heavier one. Use the variable tension of the band to your advantage. Feeling good? Choose a heavier band and really expand your range of motion. Feeling tired and a bit sore? Go for a lighter one and don’t feel like you need to pull it as taut as possible. Focus not so much on how far you can stretch the band, but more so on connecting to the muscle — truly feel the movement.
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Aside from the tried-and-true basics, I love a technique I call “chaos bands.” Say I’m doing a basic barbell back squat. The bar and plates are all fixed — I can just lock in, moving up and down with constant tension. With chaos bands, I’ll loop a long-loop resistance band over both ends of the barbell, then attach a dumbbell or kettlebell to the free end of the band (so they’re hanging off the bar). The weights will dangle and shift as you push through your reps.
There's always a little bit of shaking, and as you're going up and down, the bands actually lengthen and shorten. That means there are times when the barbell is bouncing on you a little bit. Your body needs to turn on, turn off, turn on, turn off instantaneously — so fast that you're not just getting a whole lot of muscle fatigue, but you're actually reteaching your nervous system how to fight through these switches. That’s essential: Rarely in life do we ever have constant tension.
Another exercise I love doing is a simple farmer’s carry, but the kettlebell is attached to a resistance band. As you're walking, it's swinging. I've seen clients look like they're bobbleheads, swiveling around and trying to find the right activation to lock in the load, but with that same kettlebell alone — or even double as heavy — they could have felt like it was no problem.
No matter how you use bands, don’t let your technique fall to the wayside. Often, that requires using a lighter band than you think you need. When doing a lateral walk with a too-heavy band right above the knees, I often see members’ knees stuck together, so their feet are just reaching apart and coming together again. There’s no external rotation from the hips (one of the main points of the exercise). Remember the band’s purpose, focus on the good form, the right muscle activation, and your complete range of motion, and you’ll be good to go.
Pushing big weights is a nice ego boost. But incorporating resistance bands into your warm-ups and workouts will lend just as many benefits for your fitness and well-being — and it will humble you. (Trust me, I’ve seen it happen with plenty of pro athletes.) So slow down. Challenge yourself in different planes of motion and directions of tension. Use bands, and you’re bound to feel good day in and day out, inside and outside the Club.
Colin McGeen is the personal training manager at Equinox Bloomfield Hills with more than 13 years of experience in corporate wellness, physical therapy, strength and conditioning, and general holistic health. McGeen joined Equinox as a Coach+ in 2019 and stepped into his management role in late 2021. He is a corrective exercise specialist, performance enhancement specialist, and sleep, stress management, and recovery specialist and holds numerous other certifications.