10 Ways Band Training will help you reach your fitness goals faster in 2012

Great post by the Band Man Dave, I use his bands in my training sessions all the time.
1.  Start training with bands TODAY!!  I know this seems pretty basic but when I first saw bands I thought they were another silly fitness gimmick.  That was 1996!!   They are not a gimmick and they get results quickly.  I tried his bands during a bootcamp conference in 2009 and he is very impressive, they can be used for any fitness level and work really well for group training.  
2.  Start stretching with bands especially through the hips. Fitness success over 40 will be a direct result of maintaining your joint mobility and muscle flexibility.  The #1 reason men saw me in physical therapy was because they had lost their mobility and as a result their joints, disks and cartilage were paying the price.   You are not going to beat mother nature but you can definitely slow her down.  Start stretching with BANDS!!  I use some of the heavier bands that wouldn't normally be used by my clients to have them do some really great stretches.  Flexibility is very important as we age and helps us be more mobile.  
3.  Eliminate shoulder pain by starting to do overhead pressing and pushing with bands and not just with weights.  Bands allow you to press without putting a high degree of pressure on the rotator cuff which is easily the most injured structure in the shoulder.  Plus you will train end range stability which is where the rotator cuff becomes weakest as we age.  Bands do allow you to increase your range of motion further using slower movements.  
4.   Adding band circuits to your dead weight training will take the pressure off your joints but still allow you to really feel the burn.  I’m not a body builder but I like to keep my body looking good as I am sure many of you do.  Unfortunately, doing dead weight muscle isolation training is not tolerable to the body as we age.  Fortunately bands are and since muscle's are dumb, they won’t know the difference between band resistance and dead weight resistance but I promise your joints will.  I like integrating bands into the clients session instead of weights sometimes, they can work harder with more stability.
5.   Take the load off your back and start squatting with bands.  Squatting is one of those exercises you want to be able to keep doing for a long time because of its strong carry over into function.  Unfortunately dead weight will be hard on your back.  Band front squats, RDLs and lateral lunges keep the hips strong and healthy without killing your vertebral disks in your back.  When you squat with a barbell and you are weak you open yourself up for injury, you can start training with bands and it stays closer to the center of your core which helps stabilize you more.
6.   Staying quick goes a long way in keep our body orthopedically safe.  If you can maintain your agility and quick reaction you can prevent a lot of potential injury causing events like slipping, tripping or buckling that lead to ligament, cartilage, and joint trauma.  Making sure those proprioceptors do not become dormant is pretty important and can easily happen if we forget to train them.  Training slow with dead weight will make you a slow.  Training reactively with resistance bands will keep you quick and ready at all times.  Remember the erasure drills?  Try working in some reactive training with bands and see how effective it can be.
7.   Drop the sit-ups and start training the abs the way they were intended to work.  Bands not only can increase the isometric stabilization exercise intensity, they can also train the abs to become reactively strong which will make your low back and other joints very happy at the same time.  Sit ups and crunches set you up for risk of injury.  Crunches accentuates the same movement of sitting crunched over a desk all day.  Training the abs with isometrics and with bands will increase your core strength and help stabilize you much better.
8.   The key to a successful program is consistency.  You are going to have times when getting to the gym is simply not going to work.  Or there are those times when all you want to do is go by yourself some place like a park or your basement and just get after it.  Create a simple home band gym that can go where you want to go and therefore never miss a workout.  Some of my best workouts are when I go to the park or into my band gym early in the morning.  Using bands in a workout is affordable, time efficient and effective.  I can create an exercise program based just on bands that you can do anywhere, at home, while traveling, at work and yes at the park.
9.  Experiencing an amazing body transformation, means getting everyone around you on board.  My wife joins me 2 times per week to work out.  Having her onboard with band training, makes it super easy for me to stay motivated knowing she is working hard at keeping herself in great shape.  All three of my children train with bands and I feel will always make fitness a part of their life as a result of this training. I promise once you get started, they will follow and make it easier for you to keep pushing.  Bands can be used by people of all fitness levels and kids can use them too without the worry of them using weights when they may not be strong enough yet.
10.  There is no better tool to perform partner training with then bands.  Nothing pushes you more than having a friend who is pushing as hard as you are hooked onto the other end of that band.  I train with one of my greatest friends every Wednesday and we get after it using band.  The change of pace is a weekly game change.  I use bands in my workouts and the clients can team up and it teaches them how to exercise in conjunction with another which also teaches them how to stabilize when someone else is moving.


Bands are a great way to challenge yourself and is time efficient, affordable and packs easily for travel.  If you are interested in purchasing bands or an exercise program with bands click here