Shore Fit
By Bonnie Dodd-Miller
Bringing resistance bands while traveling is simple and takes up very little space.
We live in a vacation town and many flock here for the summer, so why not bring your workout with you, especially if you’re not interested in buying a gym membership or paying a drop-in fee while vacationing.
I love resistance bands, which vary in strength from light to hard. I teach a “Banded Bootcamp” twice per week at the Aquatic and Fitness Center in Ocean City. It’s an amazing class that gets very creative, from banded circuit style stations, to banded partner drills and even floor exercises.
We have a ton of fun with it. I have a great group of people that really get into the camaraderie of it all. We cheer each other on and 45 minutes goes by so quickly.
If you love body weight workouts and are looking for a way to level-up your current workout situation, you might be interested in this game-changing, muscle-building tool. They are great for on-the-go exercise or sweating in small spaces like a hotel room.
Resistance bands use oppositional force to train your muscles, meaning the band will feel heavier the more you pull on it. This challenges you to maintain the speed and power you use to execute a movement through its full range of motion.
I have my class partner up with a longer band that has handles. While one is in a wall sit, the other is executing high knees while being pulled back. High knees in general for a minute is intense, but now you’ve just added a whole new level of intensity. Trying to maintain that level of power just got so much more challenging.
You can easily adjust your workout intensity by either choosing a band with more resistance, or moving the band to different tension points on the body, such as lower or higher on your legs to increase difficulty.
We usually place them above the knee or ankle when completing lower body exercises and cardio. It’s best in my opinion to have two or three at a time with you such as a light, medium and heavy, since different muscle groups might require varying levels of resistance.
When we move through stations, they take them with them. If it requires more or less resistance, they can switch it out! That way, no one is wasting any time searching for a different band. Sometimes I have them do exercises that require two at a time. One may be around the wrists while the other is above the knee.
Resistance bands are great for building muscle without lugging all those heavy dumbbells around. Eventually, though, you will need to add more weight to keep progressing if muscle building is your goal.
The key to helping your muscles grow is tension, sufficient recovery and progressive load, all of which are feasible through using resistance bands alone. However, just like anything else, you have to keep adding to that load to achieve your goals.
If you’re an avid user of resistance bands, know that in the future, you’ll need to up the ante because your body will eventually get used to them. Don’t worry, that won’t happen overnight. I have some very strong bands that are extremely challenging to say the least. Ask my class about the black bands, they are killers.
We will eventually add weights to keep it fresh because as an instructor, I like to mix it up. You can do moves like deadlifts, bicep curls, lunges, squats and glute bridges with both a resistance band and a dumbbell to give your workout that extra tension, resulting in more room for muscle building.
There are so many ways to get creative with resistance bands. They have mini bands, longer looped bands and bands with handles.
If you’re on vacation and have limited space, but still want to get a workout in, consider investing in a few because they are relatively inexpensive and easy to carry anywhere.
Bonnie Miller is certified fitness instructor at the Ocean City Aquatic and Fitness Center and Atilis Gym in Galloway. She is a mom of three and resides Somers Point.
