When it comes to workout equipment, most people think of a barbell and bumper plates, or dumbbells and kettlebells, or maybe even treadmills and elliptical machines.

But there’s one piece of equipment that usually gets overlooked — rubber bands.

I’ll be honest, we would use bands at No Excuses CrossFit from time-to-time. But it wasn’t until February that we started using them almost everyday in our group classes. We can use them for the warm-up, for strength training, or even a finisher after the workout.

Bands are a powerful tool for both strength development, activation drills prior to your training session, as well as reducing the risk of soft-tissue injury done for high-volume finishers.

Here’s some of the benefits to using bands:

• Performing high-volume resistance band work has many advantages. For instance, this work will directly aid in strengthening connective tissue which will help prevent potential soft-tissue injuries.

• Band work can be done for high amounts of work with no risk of injury and/or delayed onset muscle soreness, which is an added bonus if you’re trying to perform more work and not take away from your main training sessions.

• For people that are new to working out, these band movements will help improve your ‘mind-to-muscle connection’ where it will be easy for you to feel the correct musculature working.

• Band work creates the ability of the muscles to generate more force thereby increasing your overall strength.

• It is highly effective when band work is used to prepare you for the upcoming training session in your warm-up sequence. The variations have a multitude of uses and are not just for ‘finishers.’

• Bands are incredibly easy to teach and perform making them a great option for someone that’s new to working out.

• In terms of variations, you’re only limited by your imagination. There are several ways you can vary band these movements, such as simply changing the band thickness or the positions in which you perform your band work.

Adding this extra work to your training multiple times a week will yield a great return on investment when it comes to improving your lifts and ability to steer clear of injury. Which is what we all want. We want to be stronger and healthier.

— Coach Brandon