Are you a workout fanatic? Can’t you miss a single workout session at any cost? Is resistance training an indispensable part of your exercise regime? If so, you must be in love with your dumbbells. But, it’s time to ditch them. Even though it might sound as the most stupid advice that you have ever got, it is better to take heed of it. Keep your free weights aside and start exercising with resistance bands. These exercise tools will give you better results than your dumbbells, when it comes to resistance training. Here are some reasons to stack away the barbells and dumbbells and start using these bands.
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Provides resistance while exercising in horizontal planes
When you use resistance bands, you will face resistance while working out in a horizontal plane. This won’t be possible in case of free weights. This is mainly because, free weights depend on gravity and they can provide resistance only against the direction of the gravity, i.e. in a vertical plane. Using these tools, you will feel strain even when you perform exercises like side punches and kicks, body twist from one side to another, etc. This will help you do your day-to-day tasks easily.
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Provides constant tension
Unlike dumbbells, which provides tension only in one direction (against the gravity), these bands provide tension throughout the exercise. For example, if you are doing bicep curls with dumbbells, you will feel tension only when you are lifting them. Once that is done, they automatically tend to fall towards your shoulder. This is not the same for bands. You will face equal tension through the entire bicep curl, thereby having an equal effect on the muscles.
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Offers linear variable resistance
With the increase in the range of motion of an exercise, the resistance provided by these exercising tools, increase. The physical properties of elastic are responsible for this increase in resistance. As it is stretched more, the tension increases with increase in length. Greater the resistance, greater is the number of muscles being used for an exercise. As more muscle fibers are used, muscles strength will increase even more. This is not obtained if you continue training with free weights.
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Prevents cheating
When you are training with resistance bands, you won’t be able to cheat. In case of dumbbells, you can easily cheat while performing an exercise. This is possible as you can use the momentum that is gained by the dumbbell to keep it moving. You just have to use your strength to build the momentum. Once that is done, the rest is easy. But, in case of elastic bands, you can stretch it only by using more of your muscle fibers. So, there is no question of cheating and your muscles are fully worked out.
These bands are lightweight and you can easily carry them with you and store them anywhere. Now you don’t have to worry about missing any exercise session even if you are travelling. They are easy on your pocket as well, compared to dumbbells. Hopefully, these reasons are enough for you to understand why you need to ditch those dumbbells.