Adding resistance bands helps add another level to basic moves such as bicep curls and shoulder press. You have to really work to maintain control not only when you perform the exercise but also when you return to the neutral position.

As you can see in the bicep curl video, the resistance band pulls against you as you perform each bicep curl. Conversely, your muscles have to resist the pull of the band back towards the ground. When you’re doing bicep curls with weights, it’s usually less of a struggle to finish off the rep than it is with a resistance band.

The shoulder press involves a fair amount of strength to pull the band up over your shoulders to the starting position. Then it’s a constant struggle to keep the band up above your shoulder level as you perform the exercise. These bands have different levels, so you can add different levels of resistance to your workout. I got the blue band this week, which is one of the hardest bands that we have access too. It was definitely a struggle to use the blue band for this and the lateral arm raises.

So this was the the hardest move of the three by far. As you can see, I actually wasn’t able to lift my arms too high laterally due to all of the resistance from the band. But I will say that even the little bit of lift that I was able to accomplish could be felt all through my arms. So even though your range of motion may not be as good with resistance bands, you’re still getting a killer workout. These bands are great for a home gym or even for traveling as they’re light weight and don’t take up a ton of space.