Resistance Bands: The Pros & Cons of Elastic Resistance

by Tom Venuto, from the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle e-zine

Do resistance bands build muscle? Yes. You can build muscle with resistance band training, there's no question about that. If you stop lifting and switch to bands only, you can probably maintain most of the muscle size that you previously built with free weights as well (maybe all of it).  If you have more casual fitness goals, band training only or band training combined with bodyweight training is a perfectly valid option that can produce some nice results if you make it a point to train progressively.

Muscle is built through resistance training where tension is placed on a muscle and then the amount of tension is increased over time. This is known as progressive overload. Bands are a form of resistance just like free weights. Doing exercises with any form of resistance can build muscle, and muscle growth can continue with any type of resistance as long as you can apply progressive overload over time.

Pros And Cons Of Elastic Resistance Band Training: Maybe the biggest advantage of bands is they are light, portable and convenient. They can be tossed in a gym bag or backpack or packed in a suitcase. Even a whole set of bands is still incredibly lightweight. That makes bands fantastic for training while you are traveling. Even if training with free weights is your primary type of workout there's no question you can at least maintain your gains while you're on the road with band training.

The fact that bands are small and portable also means they're a great tool for people who want to train at home and don't want to join a gym. Whether that's to save driving time, to have solitude instead of crowds, or to save on gym membership dues, these are all valid reasons to train at home.

Versatility is another benefit of resistance bands. This is especially true if you compare bands to weight machines because many exercise machines only allow you to perform one exercise or just a few exercises. There's huge number of exercises you can do with a single set of elastic bands. There are so many, it's almost limited only by your imagination.

On a similar note, bands are unique in the way they offer resistance through various angles and planes of motion that can't be duplicated by free weights. That's because the bands don't depend on gravity to provide the resistance. With one band, you can do pushing and pulling exercises through countless different angles that would require multiple machines costing thousands of dollars each to duplicate. In addition, many of these angles can't be duplicated at all with free weights because gravity only pulls weight one way - down.

Many studies on band training were performed with elderly people as subjects. When you look at the results of this research you see that not only were they able to gain muscle and strength, but also the ease, convenience and safety of bands made them a good choice for that demographic, even people with osteoarthritis (fibromyalgia too). There are also clinical and rehabilitative applications for elastic resistance, as well as sports and athletic training uses. These are beyond the scope of this short article but chalk them up as yet more benefits for bands.

Bands are generally considered very safe, but they can break, resulting in an accident as minor (but painful) as a giant rubber band snap, or as serious as losing an eyeball. The quality of bands can vary and some may be more susceptible to breakage than others. If you overstretch a lighter band, when instead you should have moved up to a heavier band, that also increases the risk.

In addition, if a band is not properly secured to an anchor, it can snap back and strike you even though it didn't break. This can easily happen when you're standing on a band to anchor it and it slips out from underneath your foot. Bands are considered a very joint-friendly form of training, but as you can see, injuries can arrive in other forms than exercise-induced joint pain.

We also need to acknowledge the downsides of band training. One of the major drawbacks of elastic resistance is that it's more difficult to apply progressive overload with any kind of precision. You can apply progressive overload with band training, but it's harder to quantify. The more a band is stretched, the more resistance it provides. One band does not equate to one specific number of pounds of resistance. You can systematically apply overload by simply stretching the band more, but you can't quantify the resistance with an exact number.

It's much easier to track your progress and see the load increases with free weight training. You can count it right down to the pound by tracking volume load. With weight training, you can use a 100 pound barbell on workout one, and then 105 on workout two, 110 on workout three and so on, or whatever exact amount of resistance you need. Multiply the weight by the sets and reps and you have your total volume load and you can confirm if it went up or not. There are bands that provide different levels of resistance, and they are usually even advertised with a poundage number, but this still doesn't provide the precision of free weights.

Concluding Thoughts And Recommendations: If your goal is general fitness and a muscular physique, there's little doubt you can achieve your goals with bands alone, or bands combined with bodyweight and or free weight exercises. If you train at home, bands are a great tool to have. If you travel a lot, they are incredibly useful. I'd also recommend you learn how to do some bodyweight exercises as well. Bodyweight training can be almost equally useful for home and travel training.

If you're in the older age demographic and intimidated by free weights or suffering from osteoarthritis, bands can be an excellent tool. If you're working around joint pain or injuries, bands are a good choice for rehabilitation at any age. Bands can be useful to almost everyone for occasional variety or convenience. I think it's worth it for everyone, regardless of goals, to invest in some resistance bands and experiment with some band training.

Scientific References: Lopes J et al, Effects of training with elastic resistance versus conventional resistance on muscular strength: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Sage Open Medicine, 7: 20, 2019