The last couple of years have been really hard on our bodies. Those of us that had a regular gym life found that activity severely restricted. Two years of being basically housebound, other than occasionally walking up and down the street in front of the house, have let the muscles we used to have to go out on an extended vacation. Generally, I see an increase in injuries this time of year as the weather gets nicer and people start getting out and doing more after the long winter. But this year is taking that old experience and raising it to new and different areas.
What is new and different is the number of people that I am seeing that tell me the same story – “I didn’t do anything. It just went out!” Two years of way too much sitting and way too much eating take-out food is showing up in a lot of unnecessary suffering. The body needs movement to be healthy. The body needs to push its strength limits regularly. The body needs regular challenges to its balance system. The body needs to get its heart rate up now and then. The joints need to be moved in all directions and the muscles need to be stretched. Sitting in front of the computer or the television does not do any of these things the body needs.
Even though things are starting to open up, getting the motivation to get back out to the gym is challenging. The world has shrunk to where staying at home feels normal now. Three years ago life was all about getting out and doing things. Now, not so much. Nevertheless, the needs of the body do not go away. But even staying at home we can meet these needs through some simple at-home activities. Personally, throughout these last two years, I have kept some level of movement activity going with a few daily body engagements. Every morning, after I run Ellen through her exercises, I will do a number of shoulder and arm mobilization movements. I follow this with a set of Hindu squats and a set of push-ups. I do these movements while standing in front of my red light panel. I also spend three minutes looking directly into the red light panel as this has been found to prevent and even reverse macular degeneration of the eyes.
After a shower and breakfast, I will stand on a vibration plate for 10 minutes while also inhaling hydrogen. (Hydrogen is the best anti-oxidant available for fighting inflammation.) If I have time, I will also spend a few minutes on the rebounder before heading off to work. These daily activities get the blood and lymph moving, mobilize the joints, challenge the balance system, and warm and stretch the muscles. But what is missing in my daily routine is any real strength training. That is where bands come in – big rubber bands.
Unless you have a lot of extra room for a home gym, the typical types of big bulky weight lifting equipment you find at a gym are not a part of most folks’ home equipment. Some folks might have a stationary bike or a treadmill, but most people do not do much in the way of resistance training at home – but you can, with bands. You don’t actually need weights to do resistance training. You can produce plenty of resistance with simple little rubber (latex actually) bands. A brief perusal of the internet shows sites touting the 10 best, 20 best, even the 30 best exercise band exercises to make you totally fit. A lot of the exercises look more like attempts to make your butt look toned rather than actually make you physically fit. But then the models demonstrating the exercises were all 20-somethings needing the right look for their Instagram pics.
What do average people need? There are three primary movements we train in strength training – squat, push, and pull. Additionally, there are four fundamental coordination exercises – lunge, hinge lift, trunk rotation, and balanced walking. Everything else we do muscularly flows from these basic seven movements. Band exercises can easily be applied to the first three – squat, push, and pull movements, as well as be adapted to work the lunge, hinge, and rotation exercises. The cost of band exercise equipment is very easy on the pocketbook – a top-quality set of bands can be had for under $50. (Amazon link here) Bands literally take as much room as a loaf of bread, so no floor space is needed for clunky pieces of equipment. The resistance is highly adjustable by using different combinations of lighter and heavier resistance bands. And as a special bonus, the type of resistance provided by a resistance band is ideal for working out and strengthening a muscle through its entire range of motion.
When I work out I like to get the maximum bang for my buck, which means the most benefit from the least time invested. Most of the internet exercise programs I have watched seem to be designed for folks that have nothing better to do than work out all day. They will say to do a particular exercise at three sets of 20 repetitions. Then they demonstrate 20 or 30 different movements. I am sure that these are all great for you, but I have other places to be and other things to do with my day. Just 20 moves at three sets of 20 reps add up to 1200 reps! My exercise program involves 7 to 8 reps done once with maybe six exercises. How does this work?
To grasp some basic muscle physiology, you have to understand that the body is very economical. It will not expend the energy and resources to build new muscle until you have proved to it that you really need it. How does it know you need more muscle? You have to drive the muscle to failure in your exercise. Any exercise where you do 3 sets of 20 reps and then move right on to another similar exercise is not driving those muscles to failure. They might get tired. They might get sore. But if they don’t reach mechanical failure, meaning that they literally can not move one inch further, your body will think that whatever muscle you have is enough. You don’t need more. Professional bodybuilders know this. That is why they use such massive weights. But there is a sneaky way around the need for massive weights. That sneaky way is to lift real slow. If you spend 10 seconds contracting the muscle from full extension to full contraction and then another 10 seconds returning to full extension, you can achieve the same effect the professionals are getting using half to 2/3rds the weight. An additional benefit to super slow exercise is that because you are using less total weight and no jerking motion, you vastly reduce the chances of injury to your joints. That’s a double win! I strive to reach failure within 6 to 8 reps of any exercise I do with the bands, then that is it for that muscle. It will send the chemical message to the control centers that we need to build more muscle.
Equally important when you are doing strength training in this way is that you only work each muscle two times per week. Just as important as the workout is the recovery phase between workouts in which you build that new muscle. Good quality sleep and good nutrition are vital for 2 to 3 days after such a workout before you do that again. I know, we like to believe that working out every day will get you fit much faster, but just the opposite is true. Professionals know this, but since their social life is the gym, they only work on limited numbers of muscles at each workout and rotate which muscles they work on each day.
For me, Wednesdays and Saturdays are my strength training days. This only involves an extra 10 to 15 minutes added to my daily warmup and stretch routine. I will stand on my bands and do an arm curl, then do a squat holding onto the band under my feet to resist that movement. I like to include a shoulder shrug as well with this band position. Then I attach the bands to the top of my bedroom door and do a pull-down from up high followed by a pull-down from waist high, followed by a pullback. Each of these is done super slow using a band strength that produces failure at around the seventh rep. That means each exercise takes about 2 minutes and the whole routine is done in 12 to 15 minutes. Twice a week is all I need to maintain my strength. I could do tons of other exercises if I needed to attract lots of likes on my social media postings, but since I have never even been on social media I save myself all that work.
So there you have it. You can get nicely fit at home without much time or much in the way of equipment. Since the effort is not great and it is very convenient, most of the resistance reasons for not exercising are taken away. So enjoy a renewed relationship with your body and your health.
Take care,
David