Do you really make the most of your resistance bands? I am sure you have all used a resistance band in one of their many colours and forms. I am also sure you have read articles like this or received expert advice from trainers telling you how to use the bands. What you probably have not had is training advice straight from the horse's mouth.

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey has been there, done that and wears a Team GB shirt. Harry is one of UK’s top sprinters, who not only has an impressive resume behind his name with achievements such as Olympic athlete, World Junior Champion, Commonwealth Gold Medalist and World Championship bronze medalist, but has also proved what good conditioning can do for you with an elite career which is currently 15 years in the making. Harry includes resistance bands into his training on a daily basis and has shared with us some of his preferred methods of training, using bands which we have outlined below.

Muscle activation

Resistance Bands feature heavily in Harry’s warm up routine as activation exercises. Activation exercises help “switch” on muscles before you start your routine. When you perform an exercise, the brain sends a signal to the relevant muscle group telling them to contract. This pathway from the brain is now in a heightened state and the activated muscles are now, for a limited time, ready to perform. This is often used to help activate muscles that have become “lazy” or underactive to prevent muscle imbalances. As in Harry’s case, you can also use activation exercises to prepare the relevant muscles for training. For instance, as a sprinter there is a large focus on the glutes and hip flexors.Harry would perform the below exercises so when he does an exercise such as a squat then glutes will already be primed and end up contracting more powerfully, resulting in Harry being able to use heavier loads and an increased focus on key muscles that heis targeting.

Resistance bands are perfectly suited for muscle activation. Select the muscle that you want to activate and an appropriate resistance band. You want a band that applies a constant resistance throughout the movement but not too tight so that you can’t complete the full range of motion or lose form. Complete one to two sets of 5-10 reps. Perform each exercise at a slow tempo and focus on the muscle that you are trying to activate to help improve the mind-muscle connection.

Glute activation

Start on all fours with a band looped around one foot and the other end of the band anchored around a power cage. Start with our core slightly contracted and your shoulder blades pull down your back. Slowly extend your leg to a straight position and at the same pace return to the starting position.

Hip flexor activation

Start on all fours with the band looped around one knee. Start with your core slightly contracted and your shoulder blades pulled down your back. Bring your knee towards your chest slowly, and return to the starting position at the same pace.

Interference Strength Exercises

Resistance Bands are probably best known for their use in strength exercises. You can see them in use in most gyms and in various forms.

What is not as common is using resistance bands for interference exercises. For these exercises, instead of using the resistance bands to provide resistance during the actual movement, we use the bands to pull the body out of the correct movement pattern. This results in the body having to work certain muscles harder to keep the movement pattern correct.

By including this in your training you are able to strengthen your stability and core muscles and prevent muscle imbalances. Harry includes the following exercise in his program regularly.

Squat with banded interference

Get into a squat position with feet slightly wider than hips and toes slightly outward. The band should be around the upper thigh and at a 45 degree angle behind you. Lower yourself slowly into a squat, then drive through the heels and glutes to return to the starting position. Throughout the entire movement make sure that you do not lose the form of your squat.

Banded mobility

Using Resistance Bands to effect mobility changes in joints has become more common in the fitness industry. Basically the idea is that the band pulls on one part of a joint that you are stretching to increase the effect of the stretch.

A good example of this is Harry’s banded hip mobility exercise. By having the resistance band pull against the upper thigh while stretching the hip flexors you will get a superior stretch.

These banded mobility exercises need to come with a couple of notes. Firstly there must be a reason to do them. To randomly attach bands and start stretching a joint can end up causing more bad than good. An assessment should always be done first to see if there is a tightness to begin with.

The second note is to understand the effect of the banded mobility stretch. These exercises are largely temporary, meaning that while you will experience short term increased mobility, your body will revert back to its previous movement pattern.

The best way to ensure that you have long lasting flexibility improvement is to “cement” the mobility changes caused by the banded mobility in place by performing strength exercises immediately after. The strength exercise results in the muscles getting stronger in the adjusted movement pattern creating a more permanent mobility change. For the hip mobility example you would perform a set or two of the mobility exercises followed by an exercise such as the squat.

Hip banded mobility

Start in a half kneeling position with the band underneath the glute and pulling the thigh anteriorly. Make sure to tighten your core so your glutes are “tucked” under your hips. Raise the arm of the leg that is being stretched and slightly lunge forward while staying tall.

Resistance bands are often disregarded by many as they get boxed into a single style of training. However, as we can see with Harry, resistance bands are not only highly versatile as traditional strength training tools but they also have a number of other training benefits. Why not keep going with our resistance bands arm workout.

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Written by guest author Brendan McBirnie.

Tags: Equipment > Resistance Bands ; Exercise Type > Conditioning ; Misc > Workout