Push Past Workout Plateaus With Resistance Band Training

What's your favorite band when you exercise? What gets you pumped, motivated, and energized to hit every set with everything you got?

Is it some Metallica or AC/DC that gets your fired up? Or do you enjoy pumping out reps to the beats and lyrics of Eminem and Jay Z?

Whatever your favorite band may be, it's time to forget about the band buzzing in your ear and focus on the band staring back at you from across the gym: the resistance band.

Related: Strength Training: The Missing Muscle Building Key?

While resistance bands are most commonly thought of as a tool used for warming up your muscles before lifting or for athletes looking to increase their speed and power on the field, resistance bands can actually be used in your lifting split to help increase explosiveness and strength.

Wait, you mean those bright colored rubber bands that the senior citizen group uses for their 9AM aerobics class? Yes, those same resistance bands.

Resistance bands have been around for quite some time. Originating as a physical therapy tool to assist people with increasing their strength and mobility, resistance band weight training has pushed beyond the realms of physical therapy and 9AM aerobics classes as of recently.

Band training has become increasingly popular and continues to remain a trend across the fitness world with both bodybuilders and powerlifters. And, there's good reason for this growing trend.


When performing repetitions of any exercise from curls to bench press, most of us tend to put more focus on the positive movement and not enough focus on the negative movement. The positive, or concentric, portion of the movement is the curling, pushing, or pulling part of the movement. During the concentric phase the muscle shortens as you are squeezing and contracting the muscle.

As you raise the weight back down or move it away from your body, the targeted muscle lengthens. This negative, or eccentric, portion of the movement tends to get negated during our workouts as we get so focused on squeezing the muscle during the concentric phase.

Resistance band training helps you focus on the eccentric portion of the movement rather than only focusing on the concentric portion. By combining resistance bands with your lifts the muscle stays under a constant state of tension, effectively working the muscle through both the concentric and eccentric phases of the movement.

Benefits of Eccentric Training

Using resistance band training to put your muscle under a greater amount of tension is a great way to switch up your training and reap the benefits of eccentric style training. Research has shown that when the muscle is lengthened during the eccentric portion of the movement, protein synthesis is increased as compared to the concentric phase. ^[1] Scientists have found this increased protein synthesis increase is due a chemical called phosphatidic acid, which is released during the eccentric phase of the movement. ^[2]

By increasing focus on the eccentric portion of the movement you can also push past your plateaus. If you've reached a strength plateau in your training then it may be time to add resistance bands to your training.

One of the reasons we plateau in our training is because our bodies are no longer able to activate satellite cells, which are cells located on the outside of the muscle. These satellite cells respond to damage in their vicinity, so during lifting when you are tearing the muscle these satellite cells move to the damaged area. By attaching to the muscle as a response to the damaged muscle these cells transform into muscle fibers, giving you more potential for your muscles to grow. ^[3]

Bands for Bodybuilding and Powerlifting

Resistance band training can be implemented into your training whether you are a bodybuilder or powerlifter.

The most common and most effective use of resistance bands is through the reverse band method. This method can be effectively used for both hypertrophy training and strength training.

A bodybuilder looking to bring up their chest or quads can use the reverse band method to reduce stress on the muscles and joints while allowing the individual to handle a greater load. By being able to handle more weight you are forcing more fibers within the muscle to work, leading to more fiber recruitment.

Using the squat movement as an example, the load is lightened the most at the bottom of the movement, taking stress off the hip joints and knees. Reverse band squats also shift more of the weight load to the quads, from your posterior chain, to allow for more activation and development within your quadriceps.

The benefits of resistance band training don't stop there. Resistance band training has been used by powerlifters all over the world to bring their strength to new levels. Using resistance band training in his own program, Louie Simmons was one of the first coaches to apply bands to strength training. Simmons still holds powerlifting records at over 50 years of age and his training style has been used by hundreds of powerlifters to crush world record lifts year after year.

Bands assist in powerlifting movements by decreasing the load where your leverage in the movement is the poorest, such as the starting positioning of a deadlift. The bands then increase the load at the top of the lift, or lockout. Using resistance bands as a method for strength training allows you to perfect and strengthen the lockout portion of the lift, helping you to progressively strengthen the movement as a whole.

Join the Band

Whether you are looking to try something new, revamp your training, or join grandma in her Tuesday morning aerobics class, resistance bands are an amazing tool to implement within your training routine. Resistance bands can help you increase power, explosiveness, strength, and protein synthesis.

Continuing to challenge yourself in the gym is the only way to make progress. Pushing yourself beyond your self-conceived limits is the key to success. So, if you've hit a plateau and are searching for some newfound gains, it may be time for you to pick up a set of bands and get to work.

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References

1) Eliasson J, et al. Maximal lengthening contractions increase p70 S6 kinase phosphorylation in human skeletal muscle in the absence of nutritional supply. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Dec;291(6):E1197-205.
2) O'Neil TK, et al. The role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase and phosphatidic acid in the regulation of mammalian target of rapamycin following eccentric contractions. J Physiol. 2009 Jul 15;587(Pt 14):3691-701.
3) Rosenblatt JD, et al. Satellite cell activity is required for hypertrophy of overloaded adult rat muscle. Muscle Nerve. 1994 Jun;17(6):608-13.