19 Best Resistance Band Exercises

Build full-body muscle and strength from home with our guide to training with resistance bands

Resistance bands are often dismissed as little more than warm-up or rehab tools, but when you know how to use them, they can also be valuable additions to your strength training arsenal.

"Resistance bands offer a flexible and affordable introduction into resistance training," says David Birtwistle. "They can be excellent tools for developing strength if you don't have a wealth of weights at your disposal."

In the gym, you can add bands to weighted lifts like the bench press or deadlift, to apply greater resistance throughout the movement. But if you're working out from home, one decent set of bands is enough to get an effective full-body workout in.

There are two principal ways in which the body builds muscle: mechanical tension and metabolic stress. The first, which sees muscles contract strongly when loaded with heavy weight, is less applicable for band training. The focus with bands, therefore, is on metabolic stress: the burning you feel when a muscle is working hard for a long time. Resistance bands work particularly well for higher reps.

Although rather than y assigning a specific rep range, with bands it can sometimes be better to keep going with perfect form until you feel like your technique is about to break down or you're a couple of reps shy of failure. Slowing your reps is also a good idea, increasing time under tension and maximising muscle activation.

In terms of structuring band workouts, the same principles apply as regular weights training. Jack Hanrahan is a renowned strength coach and long-time band fan. "If you're going to do two to three strength sessions per week, do full body," he says. "If you're going to do four or more, you could do an upper/lower split."