Resistance bands can be used to make exercises harder AND easier!
Something that we utilize heavily in our practice are resistance bands, like Therabands, because they are incredible versatile, yet don’t take up much space at all. As some of you know, my favorite is the looped band as it can be used for all of the exercises below without you having to go out and buy multiple bands. They also come in various thicknesses and can range from low resistance to high 20 lbs resistance. Here are my favorite ways to use them:
- Breathing
This one absolutely blew my mind when I did it for the first time. Lie on your back, hips bent at 90 and loop the band above your knees and gently push out against the resistance. Now take a deep belly breath. Feel that!? That incredible sensation of fullness of breath comes from proper activation of your core muscles. Every breath should feel this good.
- Making an exercise easier
Struggling with your basic core exercises? No worries, just grab a band let the tension help you complete the movement. You can do that with various core exercises or my personal favorite is taking a heavier band, wrapping over a pullup and under your feet and behold, that pull-up that you could never achieve can now be practiced in perfect form.
- Challenge Yourself
Finally, the part all you athletes out there love the most. Want to get more out of your hip abduction exercises, but not quite ready to move up to the hip hikes (more about that in the next post). Just take a elastic band, loop it around your thighs and see how many you can do now. Ready for more? Move the elastic band down to your ankles, provided you don’t have knee problems, and get more resistance out of the same exact band!
Hope you find these useful and go on amazon right now to get a band you’ll never get tired of using. The trick, after all, is to get creative!
Dr. Nick Predtechensky is the author of this post. He may be reached at DrNick@OnsightChiro.com.