This year has been a time of adjustment for everyone. For Canadians who love the gym, shutdowns have cut a lot of us off from our favourite piece of equipment – free weights.
Some of us went on to discover alternate ways of getting in our workouts from home, like bodyweight exercises, yoga, tai chi, and cardio. It hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been something.
Fortunately, a lot of us were able to get back to weights this summer. Now that Canada faces another possible shutdown in response to the second wave of coronavirus, your workout is threatened.
We’ve got some good news for you though.
You Don’t Need Free Weights
Hear us out. Weights are great. They feel great, they work and they do what they’re supposed to. There are other ways to get those same benefits though.
At the end of the day, all weights are is strength training. You can challenge yourself in strength training by moving out the free weights and selecting resistance bands.
These sort of bands can be used at the gym but also at home. In a sense, you always have a workout on you when you’re carrying these very lightweight resistance bands. No free weights needed!
What Are the Benefits of Resistance Bands?
Resistance bands create resistance in every direction. This means increased difficulty in certain workouts.
This is what forms the basis of most of the benefits of resistance bands. They offer more flexibility than weights. Resistance bands are also easier to control which helps a user perfect the performance of an exercise and ensure they get a full range-of-motion from every pump.
There’s no cheating with resistance bands. When using weights, you can use momentum to essentially swing weight up. This happens all the time on bicep curls. We see people throw the weight up instead of lifting it. This is clear cheating. When you do the same curl with resistance bands, you can’t cheat. You’ve got to move with control. There’s no other way to do it.
Also, compared to other exercise equipment, resistance bands are definitely have properties of easy to carry on, price affordable and easy to manipulate.
Injury Rehab With Resistance Bands
Another area where resistance bands have proven to be effective are with sports injuries.
Injury rehab with resistance bands is a safe and easy way to build strength. They allow an athlete to build up their muscles without stressing them to an unsafe point.
For beginners and those who haven’t been in the gym in some time, resistance bands will introduce your muscles to the day-to-day while avoiding the ugly injuries that can come with going overly heavy and/or not learning the correct form.
Black Friday 2020 arrives on November 27. It’s almost here! Come and join Lierre.ca and revolutionize how you workout. Always have a plan. Even in a shutdown, you can still find a way to get in a sweat.