Can You Gain Muscle with Resistance Bands?
Do you want to build muscles? Are you searching for effective ways of strengthening your muscles? If yes, you need to try resistance band exercises. Resistance bands are a great way of building muscles, and that too from the comfort of your home. Let's find out how this exercise equipment helps in building muscles.
Do Resistance Bands Build Muscle?
Many people believe that a stretchy resistance band is nothing in front of a solid iron or steel plate. They think that resistance bands can never help build muscles as free weights do. Well, this isn't true. Resistance bands help in building muscles. You can surely build muscles using resistance bands.
Can You Get Muscles from Resistance Bands?
Yes, you can. In simple words, resistance bands target stabilizing muscle groups and provide extra intensity to existing challenging body-weight exercises. The idea is to involve a “progressive overload approach” by doing more sets and repetitions with time and involving training with proper nutrition.
Resistance bands are not only portable; instead, they are incredibly efficient when it comes to strength training and gaining muscles.
How Resistance Bands Help in Gaining Muscles?
The idea behind building muscles using resistance bands is the same as is for free weights. They offer resistance that your muscle fights against and resist instead of having a rest between the repetitions.
You need tension, adequate recovery and nutrition, muscle adaptation, and progressive overload to make your muscle-building effective.
Progressive overload means that you continuously force your body to adapt to more stress and tension than what it was previously exposed to. This means your muscle strength increases with time. This can be done by; lifting heavier weights or using higher tension resistance bands.
For example, this means lifting increased weights for barbells and hand weights. Similarly, it means using an increased size or tension for resistance bands.
Furthermore, you must increase the number of repetitions to promote muscle exhaustion. While using resistance bands, you have to feel the muscle contracting hard, and at the end of the session, your muscles should be burning.
What Muscles Does Resistance Band Work?
You can use resistance bands for a full-body workout. However, you can also use these bands to target specific muscle groups. Resistance bands can target all muscle groups, including; quads, glutes, hamstrings, chest, shoulders, lats, biceps, triceps, and abs.
How to Use Resistance Bands for Abs?
When it comes to strengthening your cores, you are surely thinking about your abs. Particularly, you may be focusing on your six-pack muscle. Here is an easy exercise that you can perform using resistance bands to target your abs.
Banded Bridge
This exercise is perfect for beginners as well as experienced professionals. Let’s see how you can perform banded bridge from the comfort of your home using resistance bands.
- Lie on the ground with your face up and a mini resistance band around your thighs. Your heels must be as close to the hips as possible but must be a shoulder distance apart.
- Lift your hips high while keeping your shoulder blades on the ground. Keep the knees open.
- Maintain a deep scoop in the belly while rolling the spine back
- Complete 2-3 sets of 10 repetitions
Do Resistance Bands Work for Glutes?
Resistance bands exercises are an excellent activity for your glutes. These exercises make your glutes ready for work. There are plenty of resistance band workouts that you can perform to strengthen your glutes. Let's discuss one of them.
Lateral Band Walk
A lateral band walk is a great exercise that targets your glutes. Here is how you can perform this exercise.
- Place a resistance band around your ankles.
- With your feet about hip-width apart, stand in a quarter squat position. Your hands must be on your chest on your hips.
- Move one step to the right with your right foot so that your feet get wider than the hip-width. Repeat this step with your left foot so that your feet are hip-width apart again.
- In the same way, take three steps to the right and then to the left.
- Perform three repetitions
During this exercise, try to keep your weight in the center and maintain a constant tension in the band. Only then will you be able to obtain optimum results.
Do Resistance Bands Work for Bum?
Resistance band exercises are perfect for your bum. Here is the best resistance band exercise for your bum that you can perform from the comfort of your home.
Standing Glute Kickback
Wear a resistance band around your ankles. Stand with your feet about hip-width apart while engaging your core.
- Place your hands on your chest or your hips. Shift all your weight onto your left leg while placing your right toes on the floor about an inch diagonally behind your left heel. The objective is to produce tension in the band.
- While squeezing your core, tuck your pelvis and kick your right leg back about 6 inches. Make sure your knees are straight.
- Bring your right foot back and tap the floor while maintaining tension in the band.
- Complete multiple repetitions
Final Words
If you want to gain muscles, resistance band exercises are perfect. These exercises engage various muscle groups and play a vital role in strengthening them. There are plenty of activities that you can perform using resistance bands. So, do not delay getting your pair of resistance bands and start your workout sessions straight away.
