Lately, (particularly in 2020) there’s been a lot of good reasons to stay home and try to work out there instead of going to the gym. Resistance bands are inexpensive, portable and versatile. Some people even find that they love using resistance bands more than actual weights. So when it comes to training most guys’ favorite muscle – the biceps – you may wonder, are resistance bands good for doing biceps curls?
No surprise here, resistance bands are excellent for training biceps (as they are for most muscles) because of the resistance curve! That is, the exercise is easiest at the bottom of the movement, where the biceps are weakest, and the band is the least stretched. Of course, at the top of the movement where the biceps are far stronger, the exercise is hardest because the band has been stretched much further, creating far more resistance.
This means that your curls are no longer limited by the weakest point in the movement. For example, if you can only curl 50 lbs on a barbell curl, this really means you can only start a barbell curl with 50 lbs. You could use more weight if you did partial reps in the top half of the exercise, or if you could somehow slide more weight on and off during each rep! Of course this isn’t practical, but using resistance bands is a method available to you that essentially does just that! The resistance increases as the band is stretched and you move away from your weak zone.
So, are resistance bands your best choice for home biceps training? Are they better than free weights for home use? Can you still get objectively good biceps from resistance bands? Let’s talk about it for a bit.
Do resistance bands build good arms?
Any form of resistance training can really help develop the arms. The biceps (and triceps) are some of the most visible muscles to others. So, most people (guys especially) put a large emphasis on developing them. You can choose between a number of types of resistance to use to build your arms. The main types of resistance you can use are:
Free weights – resistance is dependent on the angle and gravity, so for instance, a barbell curl is hardest at the bottom (where the muscle is weakest), and easy at the top (where the muscle is strongest). This means that the weight you can use is limited by the weak range and your biceps is not being challenged in its strong range.
Machines – resistance is the same throughout the movement, so you are limited by the weakest part of the movement. Again, this means that your muscle is not being fully challenged in the strong range of the movement.
Resistance Bands – the exercise is easiest at the bottom (stretch), hardest at the top (contraction). This way, if you use a sufficiently difficult band, you can work the muscle at an appropriately increasing level as you transition from weak-to-strong ranges within the exercise.
While some people’s arms will grow easily and practically swell up as soon as you touch a weight, for others it will take a great deal more focus, work, and patience. (I personally fall into the second group, my biceps have always been the hardest muscles for me to grow).
However, when I stumbled into the use of resistance bands due to the closing of gyms at the time of writing, I discovered that not only are resistance bands a great substitute for the equipment I would use to train arms at the gym, but they are actually superior in at least one way!
Can you build biceps with resistance bands?
The biceps are one of the easiest muscles to build with resistance band training. Simply grasp the handles, stand on the center of the band or anchor it to a secure object (maybe a heavy piece of furniture) and curl the handles up toward the shoulders.
As you curl upwards, the band is stretched further and provides more resistance to pull against. This means that the biceps is worked much harder at the top of the curl. This is where the muscle is the strongest, and you will experience a very tight contraction. This enhanced contraction, when repeated over a few sets, will result in a great biceps pump during the workout and accelerated biceps growth if done over a period of weeks or longer.
The biceps can undoubtedly be developed to a high degree by the consistent use of resistance bands for arm training. Be sure to include both regular grip, and reverse grip curls to work the biceps and brachialis from all angles and get maximal arm development.
Why are resistance bands better for your arms than weights?
Resistance bands offer more resistance at the moment of peak contraction. So, where you are the strongest, they provide the strongest level of resistance. This resistance curve is particularly useful for arms, as muscles such as the triceps and biceps have extreme differences in capability at different ends of their respective movements.
Weights are cumbersome, can be dangerous, and the plane of movement is dictated to you by gravity. With the bands, the direction in which you apply force can be easily varied by anchoring the band to an object or hook in varied positions. There is also considerably less chance of injury to your arms when you train with resistance bands. There are no weights to drop, slide off, or need adjusting.You’ll never need a spotter, and can do every exercise while sitting or standing upright.
So, for your arms, resistance bands are: more effective due to the increasing resistance curve, safer, more convenient, and far more affordable than weights.
If you don’t have any bands yet, here’s a quality resistance band set I’d recommend from Dick’s Sporting Goods.
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What Are The Benefits Of Exercising With Resistance Bands?
Resistance bands are inexpensive, their portability is unrivalled, they take up hardly any space, the sheer number of exercises you can do with them is huge, and there’s less risk of injury! With these advantages over weights and gyms, there is a strong case for you to use resistance bands in your workouts. Maybe even use them exclusively if you travel a lot or don’t have time for, or access to, a gym.
With a basic set of resistance bands causing as little as $20, the affordability and convenience of these simple tools makes them a great choice for anyone that wants to get a good workout on their own terms.
Safety, variable resistance increasing toward your strong range of any exercise, the low cost, and the fact that you have so many possibilities with such little equipment, makes resistance bands an excellent tool to use to create your best body.
How Can I Fix Uneven Push Ups? Here’s A Plan To Get You Back On Track.
So you start doing push-ups, but find that your form is uneven. One side lags behind the other, or you can’t keep your shoulders parallel to the ground. You have a weak area in the chain. Push-ups are a compound exercise, that is, they involve more than one joint. So you need to figure out where your weak point is, and train to correct it. Uneven push-ups can be corrected by doing a number of things, including smaller sets, or partial (range) reps, amongst others that we will discuss.
The point is that this is a problem that can be addressed. For the amount of time you need to put in, there are few exercises that will give you so much in the way of results with so much simplicity and convenience.
