Try These Killer Core and Upper Body Exercises
While almost every exercise has an expander version, there are only a few exercises in which a bandage is one of the best ways to do it. Here are some of my favorite upper body movements. Join our resistance group challenge and give it a try!
Pallof Press
This is a great exercise for preventing torso rotation, meaning the band is trying to twist your body, and you need to engage the muscles on the sides of your torso to stay strong. To set this up, attach the strap to something that doesn’t move, like a doorknob or squat rack. Stand sideways and pull it so that you are holding it firmly with both hands, right in front of your belly button.
Then straighten your arms in front of you. The movement is a bit like a bench press, but you’re not actually pressing any weight. Instead, you maintain tension in the brace as your arms change position and it becomes more difficult to resist the pull.
Assisted push-ups
I haven’t seen him very often, but I think he’s brilliant. Wrap a small bandage around your arms – forearms or elbows. Then do the push-ups as usual. When you are at the very bottom of the movement, the strap will help you get up again. This “cheats” the bottom of the push-up, so don’t rely on it as your only exercise, but it may be one of the many tools you can use to practice push-ups.
Assisted Pull-Ups
This one is a little more famous, but definitely worth mentioning! Wrap a long elastic band around the bar and then step on it with your foot or knee. The strip will help you at the bottom of the movement, but less at the top.Here’s a video showing what it looks like: