10 reasons to use an exercise band when working out

Exercise bands, also known as resistance bands, build muscle strength, enhance the stability of your joints, improve your balance, alleviate pain, and help to prevent injury.

Originally resistance bands were used in physical therapy and sports medicine to help with recovery from an injury or to prevent an injury. If you do strenuous exercising after getting injured, you can make an injury even worse. But exercise bands allow you to exercise certain muscles without affecting the injured area. This improves blood circulation, which expedites your recovery.

But there are many other reasons why you’ll want to consider using resistance bands. Here’s our top 10.

1. Exercise bands come in various tension levels to accommodate stronger and weaker muscles. Different colors indicate varying degrees of difficulty.

2. Resistance bands allow you to freely move your body in many different directions, letting you achieve a great range of motion. Weight machines don’t allow you to do this.

3. You can use them to strengthen and stretch almost every muscle in your body.

4. You can combine resistance bands with other equipment to intensify your workout.

5. You can easily control tension by lengthening or shortening the band or widening or decreasing your stance.

6. You can imitate movements against resistance that you make in real life to perfect your form, such as your tennis or golf swing.

7. Because resistance in constant, you have to work harder when using an exercise band compared to working out with free weights.

8. Exercise bands are safer than free weights, which can cause injury if dropped. They are perfect for working out solo.

9. Exercise bands are among the most affordable products for exercising on the market.

10. Resistance bands are light and don’t take up much space, so they’re easy to take along when traveling.

Karen Appold is a medical writer in Lehigh Valley, PA.