Resistance band training in one form or another has been around since the late 1800s, with strongman Eugen Sandow being among the first people to recognise the potential of the humble elastic band for strength training.

Resistance bands for athletic development enjoyed a renaissance in the 1980s when Dick Hartzell developed a band strong enough to cope with large amounts of stress, as opposed to the lighter bands that were around in the 70s primarily for rehab and very light exercise purposes. These bands were used predominantly for acceleration drills but their design became the template for bands used in any demanding activity, including strength training.

More recently, Louie Simmons has been an advocate of the resistance band for strength training and the powerlifting community has embraced their use as a potent means of varying training stimuli for well-adapted athletes to push through plateaus.

Power Bands are another incarnation of the resistance band designed specifically for athletic development and differ from many of the exercise bands you'll find on the market in their method of manufacture (lamination of multiple layers of latex that are then left to cure as opposed to moulding).  The manufacturing process is key to ensuring the strength and durability required for the punishment of full-on athletic training.

Power Bands

This article aims to cover the fundamental principles of training with resistance bands in order to allow you to understand exactly how they work and therefore more effectively apply their use in training, as well as covering some specific training outcomes and exercises that can be used for these, in the following sections:

Band Basics: 

  • how they work and what they can be used for

Fundamentals of Using Power Bands for Resistance: 

  • how bands differ from other training tools
  • how they affect strength curves and what this means for their application to particular movements when used as a resisting force

Fundamentals of Using Power Bands for Assistance: 

  • how they affect strength curves and what this means for their application to particular movements when used as a resisting force

Power Bands for Stretching/Mobility & Stabiliser Activation: 

  • why bands are useful for stretching/mobility and stabiliser activation and examples of exercises including:
  • back traction
  • lower back stretch
  • resisted cat stretch
  • shoulder stretch
  • x-band walk
  • Parlov press
  • face pull
  • and 4 point stance with hip extension.

Power Bands for Strength:

  • how bands can be used to develop strength at all levels and with bodyweight or other implements and examples of exercises including:
  • assisted push ups
  • assisted pull up
  • assisted squats
  • assisted pistols
  • deadlift variations
  • good morning
  • lunge
  • squat
  • row
  • chest press variations
  • military press
  • split stance overhead press
  • and push up

Power Bands for Agility & Acceleration:

  • how bands can be used to load agility and acceleration drills and examples of exercises including:
  • lateral run
  • forward run
  • backward run
  • and bear crawl 

Different Types of Power Bands:

  • different types of Power Bands available and which are best for certain applications

Power Bands barbell deadlift

BAND BASICS

Put simply, Power Bands can either provide resistance or assistance to a given movement. The way bands assist or resist is unique, and differs from that of other objects in that the assistance or resistance the band provides changes as it is stretched. So, bands can be used to alter the strength curve of a movement – that is, they can alter the level of force required relative to the joint angle.

Power Band good morning

Bands are able to add resistance through additional planes during a movement to switch on stabilising muscles and, being elastic, can move in ways other resistance tools can’t, so have the advantage of being able to adapt to complex movement patters with multiple directional changes.

Power Bands can of course be used as a resisting or assisting force on their own, or combined with other implements - the basic principles discussed below can be applied to either.

FUNDAMENTALS OF USING POWER BANDS FOR RESISTANCE

The use of rubber bands as a resisting force is the application most people are familiar with. They are often seen as a more portable and easily stored substitute for free weights. While bands are a very good option for those who travel or have limited space, they behave quite differently to free weights and understanding this enables more intelligent programming and exploitation of their unique qualities for specific training outcomes.

Power Band push up

Power Band resistance & strength curves

When used as a resisting force, the level of resistance will increase as the band stretches. So, bands are able to affect the strength curve (forced produced relative to joint angle).

In an ascending strength curve, torque increases as the joint angle of the movement increases, and therefore the movement get progressively easier throughout the concentric phase because more force can be produced when the joints enter a position of mechanical advantage.

Barbell squat with Power Band resistance

A movement with an ascending strength curve will effectively have its strength curve ‘evened out’ by the progressive stretching, and increasing resistance, of the band throughout  the concentric phase. For example, normally a squat becomes easier the more you stand up because more force can be produced as the legs and hips extend and move into a position of mechanical advantage. With a band resisted squat, as the mechanical advantage increases, the stretch of the band also increases providing more resistance requiring greater force production as the body enters a position of mechanical advantage.

In a descending strength curve, torque increases as joint angle decreases, and therefore get progressively more difficult as throughout the concentric phase as more force is produced when the joints enter a position of mechanical disadvantage.

So band resistance will have the opposite effect on a movement with a descending strength curve, it will exacerbate, rather than even out, the strength cure. For example, the last part of a pull up is the hardest and if you add band resistance, the band stretches more as you pull closer to the bar making the hardest part of the movement even harder.

FUNDAMENTALS OF USING POWER BANDS FOR ASSISTANCE

Again, understanding how the strength curve is affected will help use bands most effectively as an assistance tool, and understand how they differ from other methods of providing assistance for bodyweight exercises.  When used as an assisting force, the more the band is stretched the more assistance it will provide.  As with using bands for resistance, this means that the band will affect the strength curve of the movement.

Power Band assistance & strength curves

For a movement with an ascending strength curve, such as a push up, the band will provide the most assistance at the most difficult part of the movement (the start of the concentric phase).

For a movement with a descending strength curve the band will assist least when the movement is most difficult. This can be of benefit when building work capacity for bodyweight exercises as the band can help provide assistance to complete more repetitions than could be done with bodyweight alone, but still focuses on building strength in the weakest part of the movement (such as at the top of the pull up).

POWER BANDS FOR STRETCHING/MOBILITY & STABILISER ACTIVATION

Stretching/Mobility

Power Bands can be a useful tool for stretching and recovery.  According to Dave Schmitz, these are some of the benefits of using resistance bands for stretching/mobility:

  • The elastic nature of resistance bands accommodate to your body’s passive end range resistance which allows motion to increase gradually
  • Resistance bands allow you to contract against a them which creates the active component to resistance band stretching
  • Band adhere to your body, creating a leverage point for passive overpressure
  • Bands have multiple resistance levels to allow for advanced stretching
  • Bands allow your body to easily move into multiple stretching angles quickly
  • Bands are portable which allows for daily stretching anywhere
  • Bands also provide assistance to improving dynamic movement skills which is part of the overall flexibility program
  • Bands also provide a great resistance training tool to help develop overall strength, explosiveness and locomotion skills

Here are some examples of how the bands can be used to improve mobility, particularly through the back and hips:

Power Band spine decompressionPower Band lower back and hip mobility Power Band back stretch

Power Band upper back activating exercises

Using Power Bands to activate stabilisers

Power Bands can also be used very effectively to activate stabilising muscle groups, which can be beneficial in terms of rehab and a useful addition to warm-ups to get stabilising muscles "woken up" before training to improve performance in decrease injury risk.

Here are some examples of Power Band exercises that will help activate stabilisers:

Power Band monster walk

Power Band Parlov Press

Power Band Reverse Fly Power Bands bird dog

Using Power Bands to add resistance across more planes to improve technique

The use of Power Bands to add resistance through more planes of movement than would ordinarily be worked is an effective method of increasing muscle activation, particularly in stabilising muscles, to improve technique.  For example, a band around the knees while squatting helps prevent valgus collapse by adding resistance across the transverse plane and increasing recruitment of external hip rotators.

Similarly, a band around the arms to provide resistance across the transverse plane teaches a lifter to "pull the bar apart" and activate their shoulder stabilisers, so can be used as a physical cue to improve bench press technique.

Bands can be used in the same manner for agility training to increase activation of stabilising muscles and therefore assist in injury-proofing athletes.

POWER BANDS FOR STRENGTH

Power Band assistance for strength development

Bands are very useful while building range of motion and skill for a particular movement, before additional load is added to the movement.  Bands can be used for support and to deload the movement, allowing you to increase the number of reps performed through the full range of motion and therefore increasing work capacity for that movement.

Remember that band assistance will affect the strength curve of a movement, so they will have different effects on movements where force is generated by extension (e.g. push ups) as opposed to movements where force is generated by flexion (e.g. chin ups)

A significant advantage of using the bands to build up strength prior to loading a movement is that they move with the body through a natural range of motion, rather than imposing an unnatural one upon them such as with an assisted pull up machine. As many people who have tried to build up to bodyweight pull ups with one of these contraptions has found, the machine’s limiting range of motion doesn’t carry over very well to the bodyweight counterpart.

Here are some examples of band assisted bodyweight exercises for developing a base level of strength prior to adding load:

Power Band Assisted Push Up Power Band assisted pull up Power Band assisted pistol Assisted squat with Power Band

Power Bands can also be used to assist barbell lifts, and act like a "spotter" to help the lifter through the most difficult part of the lift.  For example, when assisting a squat bands will help pull the lifter out of the hole and prevent them from getting stuck at the bottom.  This allows heavier loads to be lifted, and therefore enables overloading of the squat.

Power Band resistance for strength development

Band resistance can be used either as a load in and of itself, or in addition to other loading tools (such as barbells).

In terms of strength training outcomes, the use of Power Bands as a resisting force in movements with ascending strength curves is usually most useful because they load the body more when it is in a position of mechanical advantage (i.e. where is it best able to cope with the increased load).

By accommodating resistance, Power Bands will also develop acceleration throughout the concentric phase of an ascending strength curve movement, because they negate the need to decelerate towards the end of the concentric phase in order to stop.  So, training with bands can improve the force-velocity relationship of a given load over time.  Developing this explosive strength by teaching the body to accelerate through a movement like the squat or deadlift is of huge benefit for a wide variety of athletes, not the least of those being powerlifters whose sticking points on max effort lifts are often right around the spot where the resistance of the band really starts to kick in – the ability to power through that sticking point is a tried and true plateau buster.

As Stephen Pritchard notes, using bands has some parallels with partials as one portion of the lift is loaded more heavily, but he has found the use of bands more effective because the joints still move through the full range of motion for the lift.

Power Band bench press with barbell

The accommodating resistance of Power Bands promotes more emphasis on the concentric phase of an ascending strength curve movement, and this is also important to consider when programming the use of bands.  Bands reduce the eccentric co-contraction of the antagonist muscles to decelerate the barbell at the top of the motion.  This may be beneficial for performance, however, training the deceleration phase can play an important injury-prevention role in many athletes, so only loading movements with bands may not be ideal and the usefulness of band resistance in the overall program should be taken into account.

It's also important to be aware of the fact that band resistance encourages a faster eccentric phase; generally with a faster eccentric phase there is a larger contraction at the bottom of the lift and less during the rest of the range of motion.

The effect of fatigue on the sticking point is also important to note at this point. With repetition, the sticking point can be changed - think about the last reps in a 15-20 rep max bench press set where the bar can be moved off the chest but the last part of the movement, where most force can ordinarily be produced, is where failure occurs.  Therefore the level of fatigue produced in a set or session should be considered when applying the use of bands.

Here are some examples of using Power Bands to load movements for strength development:

Power Band Deadlift

powerband-ex-_0000_Vector Smart ObjectPower Band Good Morning Power Band Lunge Power Band Squat Power band one arm row powerband-ex-_0017_Vector Smart Object Power Band chest press

Power Band military press

Power Band split stance press

Power Band resisted push up

POWER BANDS FOR AGILITY & ACCELERATION

Their elastic nature of Power Bands means that they move smoothly during agility drills, including those with rapid directional changes, and therefore effectively enable you to load agility training.

The ability to accelerate effectively (rapidly increase velocity) while running is an important skill for a wide range of athletes, from track athletes to AFL players to tennis players.

The Agility Band is specifically designed for acceleration training (you need to be careful to get bands that are strong enough for this sort of work, it's not pretty when they snap).  2 metre Agility band Iron Edge

According to Mark McGrath, Power Bands "are a load enhancer that strengthen the loading phase (overload) and neurologically quicken the unloading phase (overspeed). What this means for the athlete is;

  1. they are stronger against gravity
  2. they become more effective at controlling momentum (deceleration)
  3. while increasing foot quickness and decreasing ground reaction time"

The benefits of training acceleration with the resistance of the Agility Band include increased power output, increased resistance to fatigue and decreased injury potential - all highly desirable for athletes and the fact that all three can be achieved with the one simple piece of equipment means bands deliver a lot of bang for their buck.

Acceleration can be trained in any direction with the Agility Band, and in various positions (such as upright for sprints, or on all fours in bear crawls).  The training effect can also be manipulated by altering the site of band attachment on the body: "The hip attachment trains the lumbo-pelvic girdle and facilitates triple extension (hip extension, knee extension and ankle plantar flexion). The shoulder attachment includes trunk/abdominal activation and promotes the forward lean which enhances acceleration ability."

The trick with acceleration drills is to stop before acceleration slows, so only continue while you feel explosive - fighting for a few more steps will defeat the purpose, the distance isn't important, only the ability to accelerate.  (You can train strength, for example doing slow crawls, just bear in mind the purpose of the training).

Here are some examples of Agility Band exercises that can be used to develop acceleration:

Agility Band forward run Agility Band backwards run Agility Band bear crawl

DIFFERENT TYPES OF POWER BANDS

Power Bands come in 3 different lengths: 12 inch, 41 inch and the  2 metre Agility Bands.  There are also accessories available to make anchoring and holding the bands easy in pretty much any environment, and protect the bands from abrasion.

The shorter 12 inch bands are great for providing resistance across different planes (e.g. around the knees while squatting, or the arms while bench pressing) and for lifts such as deadlifts.  The 41 inch bands are highly versatile and can be used for a huge range of exercises (as seen in the photographs in this article), they can also be doubled over and used as a substitute for shorter bands.  The  2 metre agility bands are perfect for acceleration drills, and are also a great option for partner work.

Power Bands pack

The thickness of the band will determine how much resistance it provides, and the length will determine the range (because more resistance is provided the further the band stretches).  For example, the black "monster" 41 inch Power Band provides resistance between 36 and 90kg depending on how much it is stretched - you don't want to be trying to do your rotator cuff rehab with this one!  Having a choice of resistance means you can choose a band appropriate for your needs and can increase resistance (or decrease assistance) as your strength develops.

**Many thanks to James Ross for his assistance with this article, his input on the more technical aspects has been invaluable**