The Best Full-Body Resistance Band Workout Exercises

Why Do It: Lateral raises will get the shoulders burning quickly. Furthermore, proper lateral raises will also force you to maintain a strong core during the movement, which makes for a challenging functional movement.

How to Do It:

1. Standing on the middle of a band with both feet, hold one end of the band with each hand. Make sure to have a tight, flexed torso to maintain your position throughout the movement.
   
2. Start with your arms at your side, and then bring the arms up until they are parallel to the floor (or at shoulder height), keeping a slight bend in the arms throughout the movement.
   
3. Hold the top for a moment, and then bring the arms back to your starting position.
   
4. For variety, these can be done with one foot on the band, and one arm raising up at a time; this will get some unilateral movement in your routine, improving core strength. Perform all your reps on one side, and then switch sides.

Why Do It: Clamshells will help work out the hips and thighs. Also, with the amount of work clamshells do for opening up the hips, this exercise can slowly but surely help increase mobility in any problem areas you may have in the hips.

How to Do It:

1. Lay on your hip and your forearm, and have your legs bent, feet together, positioning a band around your thighs, just above the knees.
2. While on the ground, lift the top knee up, opening up the hips.
3. Hold for a moment, and then lower the knee back down.
4. For an added challenge, you can raise the hip off the ground and be on your knee and forearm. This will engage your core more, making you do a side plank during the movement.

Why Do It: Rows will get the spinal erectors and shoulder blades of the upper back engaged quickly and efficiently. A resistance band will also keep tension throughout the movement, making it a more challenging movement.

How to Do It:

1. With both feet standing on the band, grab one end of the band with each hand. Shift the hips back as you bend over, keeping the core and lower back tight.
2. Starting with the arms extended downwards, pull the bands up towards the chest, holding for a moment, and then lowering back to the starting position.
3. This example is for a bent-over row; however, you may anchor the band to a wall or post at chest height and perform a standing row. Along with those, you could be seated on the floor with the band wrapped around the feet, pulling the band to your chest for a seated row.

Why Do It: Deadlifts are a great focus on the posterior chain of the legs, helping build the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. With banded resistance, this will also be less stress than a barbell deadlift typically is, making this a great alternative if the lower back is already feeling fatigued. (RELATED: Deadlift Muscles Worked)

How to Do It:

1. Standing with a shoulder-width stance with both feet on a band, grip each end with a hand.
2. To find your starting stance, lean over while shifting the hips back. There should be a little bend to the knees, and hips back, chest low.
3. Holding the band, push through the feet to standing, firing through the glutes and hamstrings. Control the movement and keep the core strong throughout.

Why Do It: A press is a staple in any upper body workout. This will mostly tackle the shoulders and a little bit of the triceps. Even with a chest press or bench press, the pecs will be used.

How to Do It:

1. Standing on the band with both feet, hold each end of the elastic band with a hand. Have the hands up at shoulder height, with the elbows underneath.
2. Press up with the shoulders, extending the arms all the way overhead.
3. Hold for a moment, and then lower the arms back down.
4. You can vary this overhead press by doing one arm at a time, to get the obliques firing in the core as well. Also, you can do a chest press, wrapping the band behind your back as you hold each end of the resistance band. Then, push the arms straight out forward at chest height.

Why Do It: People don’t always recognize biceps curls as a functional movement, but in this case, I would argue they can be. A resistance band is going to allow for more unilateral training, and having to maintain balance and coordination. In addition, the elasticity of the band can help you keep constant tension on the muscle during the exercise. That makes this a very effective tool to build muscle in the arms.

How to Do It: 

1. Standing on the band, hold onto it with each hand, arms lowered by your side.
2. Curl up the band, flexing the biceps and raising the forearm until it is to the chest.
3. Hold this for a moment, and then lower the arms.
4. It’s important to try to keep tension on resistance bands, and therefore your muscles, during these movements. If you are not feeling any tug or pull from the bands, grab the bands a little bit lower to shorten the slack and give on the elastic bands.

Why Do It: Triceps extensions address the back of the arms. Using this exercise is similar to the biceps curl; it’s a great movement that will work on the triceps, and use the added challenge of banded work to bring this exercise to another level.

How to Do It:

1. Stand on the band with the heels of your feet.
2. Keeping the band to the back of you, grab the other ends of the band and lift it up to behind your head, each hand gripping the band, and elbows up and high.
3. Trying the keep the upper arms in place, extend the forearms all the way overhead,
4. Hold this position for a moment, and then lower the arms back down to the starting position.

Why Do It: I have put banded pull-aparts in warm-ups for CrossFit classes for years. It’s a simple way to warm up and activate the upper back prior to a big workout. However, it has a lot of merit as its own exercise, too. 

How to Do It:

1. Hold one end of the resistance band with each hand. For a longer band, it might be preferable to grab more in towards the center of the band, as to increase the amount of tension.
2. Hold the arms straight out in front of you at shoulder height.
3. Then pull open the arms, keeping them straight, until they are at your side, still keeping at shoulder height.
4. Return back to the starting position.

Why Do It: As with many of these exercises, the addition of a resistance band helps attack other muscle areas not typically seen without them. In this case, glute bridges are great to fry the glutes and posterior chain, but with a band around the knees, they also attack the hip mobility and strength, big time. This makes it a prime exercise, for me as well as anyone else needing strengthening in the hips and posterior chain.

How to Do It:

1. Lay on the ground, with the legs bent, feet flat on the ground, along with the shoulders. Have a small band wrapped around the thighs, just above the knees.
2. Flex the glutes to raise the hips off the ground, keeping the shoulders and feet touching the ground. Push with the glutes as high as you comfortably can.
3. With the resistance band, make sure to keep pushing the knees out, as the band will want to push inward.
4. Hold for a moment, and then relax the hips back to the floor.