Resistance Band Yoga is the perfect practice for busy active people who want to make the most of their time on the mat.
I love to put as much into my time on the mat as I can and that includes cardio, strength training and of course flexibility and mobility. Like many of us, I don’t have the luxury of a lot of time so I want my practice time to deliver results.
Resistance band yoga helps to enhance all of the above (cardio, strength, flexibility and mobility).
Here is a quick snippet of me practising resistance band yoga.
Please excuse the serious look on my face but that is my ‘concentration’ face. 😁😉. I am actually having a lot of fun!
Below are my five top reasons why adding resistance band to your practice is a wonderful way to enhance your time on the mat and get you closer to your health and fitness goals.
If you read to the end you will find a 15-minute resistance band yoga class that you can try out for FREE.
5 Benefits of Resistance Band Yoga
1. Resistance Band Yoga is Good For Your Brain.
You may know the saying if you don’t use it, you lose it. This is the same with our bodies. If we don’t move in lots of diverse ways, we will soon lose our ability to do certain things.
For example, take upward bow (wheel pose).
How many of you reading this can say that you used to do it easily (and all the time) when you were a kid but cannot get into it at all now?
Why does this happen?
You could say age, and you, of course, are right. However, it is more the simple case that you are just not moving your body in that particular way anymore. Let’s face it, how many ‘wheels’ you have practised this week?
I imagine the answer is none – and by the way – that is ok 😉🙏
I am not saying that you need to start working on your wheel. What I am saying is that if we avoid moving our bodies in a certain way we will eventually lose the ability to do so. This is to do with a loss of motor control and proprioception.
Proprioception is defined as the ability to sense where your joints are in space without having to look at them. Another word for it is body awareness. As we age, our body awareness reduces, especially if we move our bodies less.
Motor control is our ability to control our movements. Again, this is something which can deteriorate with age.
Both ‘skills’ are so important if we want to stay mobile and injury-free and the good news is we can get it back.
Resistance band yoga helps us reverse this as it helps to promote better proprioception and motor control. With a bit of practice, your body would be able to do the shape of wheel as long as you continually practice that particular movement direction on a regular basis.
2. Resistance Band Yoga Enables you to Incorporate More Strength Training in Your practice.
We all know that as we get older, we lose muscle strength and definition. Yoga by itself is great in helping you build strength.
Add resistance bands to the mix, and you take it up to a whole new level. The push and pull created by the bands increase the load on the muscles which helps you to work your muscles more effectively.
Resistance band yoga is also helpful for people who are hypermobile as they increase stability and strength around the joint areas.
3. Resistance Band Yoga Adds Pulling Movements to Your practice
Yoga is great but as a movement practice, it does not involve a lot of ‘pulling action’ for the body.
For full mobility and body health we need to be able to perform the following movements: squat (knee bend), push, hinge from the hips, balance, rotate and side bend. Yoga does most of this for us but pulling, not so much.
With the addition of resistance bands, we can work on more pull as well as ramp up the other movement modalities too.
What is there not to love?
4. Resistance Band Yoga Helps you learn more about your personal misalignments or asymmetries
We all must work with asymmetries in the body – nobody is symmetrical and 100% perfectly aligned. This does not exist.
What we do want to strive for is a body which is as balanced as possible, so we don’t injure ourselves or create an imbalance in our muscles which can lead to tension or discomfort.
What I really love about resistance band yoga is you get to know clearly where you are weak and where you are strong.
With this information to hand, you can start to remedy the imbalances, improve your muscle balance, and posture and get stronger and more injury resilient as a result
5. Resistance Band Yoga Adds Variety to Your Practice – in Other Words, Stops you From Getting Bored
I admit it – I can get easily bored and need variety in my movement practice. This is just one way of adding some spice back in and the best bit is that they can be easily packed in a suitcase and taken wherever you go.
Let’s face it, even with a well-rounded yoga practice we can turn to the same poses and movements. Adding resistance bands helps to introduce different loading to the muscles which add variety and helps to stimulate more muscle growth and adaptability.
Final Thoughts
I hope you are feeling a little excited about utilising resistance bands in your yoga practice. If you are interested in trying out a class now click on the image below to sign up for a FREE class delivered straight to your inbox.
Why not join me for a workshop on resistance band yoga?
