The Best Mini Band Exercises

Mini Bands (also known as Resistance Bands or Loop Bands) are one of our favorite pieces of equipment and honestly, something that we recommend everyone should own! They are easy to transport, great for activating muscles, capable of delivering a full body workout and let’s be honest, relatively cheap.

That said, as amazing as Mini Bands are, we more often than not find that people don’t really know how to use them and for that reason, here is our guide to the Best Mini Band Exercises we think you should have up your sleeve.

Best Mini Band Exercises

How Mini Bands Work

Mini bands work similarly to free weights, but there are a few key differences. Like dumbbells, barbells, or any other free weights, mini bands provide external resistance that your muscles have to work against. When you’re pushing against a mini band during an exercise, your muscles have to engage to fight the tension.

The biggest difference, though, is that mini bands do not rely on gravity the way that free weights do. Instead, you’re working against the force of just the band. That might sound easier, but what it means is that you’re working against resistance throughout the entire range of an exercise, not just during the portion where you’re moving against gravity.

Our Top Four Best Mini Band Exercises

We’ve put together our top mini band exercises and whilst we could provide a list the length of our arm, we’ve picked just four power packed moves to get you started. These mini band exercises can be used as either activation exercises before a bigger training session, or if mixed with other body weight moves, can be an awesome workout by themselves.

Split Squat Pulses

Great for both lower and upper body activation, especially around the trunk and hips, is split squat pulses.

Technique:

  1. In a half kneeling position, raise your back leg slightly off the ground
  2. Place the mini band around your hands and reach out in front of you
  3. With your hands far enough apart to feel tension, being doing small pulses movements
  4. For extra challenge you can reach out further, or above yourself
Split Squat Pulses with Mini Band

Mini Band Walks

Having the mini band around your wrists means you get a great workout for your shoulders whilst also challenging your core.

Technique:

  1. Put the mini band around your wrists and then get into a push up position
  2. Aim to keep your body in a straight line
  3. Walk to the side, going opposite hand and opposite foot
  4. Three steps to the the left and then three steps to the right
Mini Band Walks

Split Stance Bent Over Rows

We love this exercise because it challenges so many different areas of your body.

Technique:

  1. In a half kneeling position, raise your back leg slightly off the ground
  2. Place the mini band around your foot and maintain your weight in your front foot whilst hinging forwards from your hips
  3. Perform a row motion, trying to feel your shoulder blades come together
  4. Hold the motion at the top for extra burn!
Best Bent Over Row Exercise

T Touch

Another exercise that will hit multiple parts of your body is the T Touch.

Technique:

  1. Put the band around your ankles and place all of your weight onto your left foot
  2. Hinge backwards, setting your hips back
  3. Tap your right foot backwards, to the side and forwards
  4. Maintain your weight on the planted foot
T Touch with Loop Band

With the above exercise, you should make sure to keep balance between sides, so repeat with similar technique on opposite sides of your body.

These mini band exercises are great to activate or as a workout. If used for activation, we would complete fewer sets, say 2 or 3 and for 30 seconds at a time. If you incorporate them with other exercises into a full workout, perhaps do 3 to 5 sets but again for 30 seconds each time.

Slowly Does It

That’s our Top 4 Best Band Exercises that you can do from pretty much anywhere! We are completely confident when we say that if you incorporate these exercises into your weekly routine, you’ll see (and feel) some great benefits!

As with most exercise, we would highly recommend that you take it slowly and feel your way in. If new to mini bands, please just be cautious and if in any doubt get in touch with a professional who can help.

This article features Precision Physio Concords – Rebecca Beuk. If you would like more information, or feel you might benefit from a session with one of the Precision Physio team, you can either come in and see us or work with us online.

How Do I Book An Appointment with Precision Physio for Help?

We’re taking the health of our clients, members and staff very seriously and our preference would be for you to call to book an appointment so that we can make sure to explain our approach to keeping you safe. You can call any of these numbers to schedule a session:

Online Consultations

Evolving with the current environment, we are also now offering online appointments, meaning that we can support anyone who is unable to leave their home. Sessions are done via our state of the art Telehealth system and as long as you have a laptop or tablet with an inbuilt camera, or a phone with camera, we can help! Online consultations would be especially effective for guiding you in how to use your Mini Bands.

To learn more about online consultations, please call us on any of the numbers listed above.

Purchasing Mini Bands

Mini Bands are not difficult to find and can be purchased from most sports stores, however as by Rebecca above, we strongly recommend the brand Blackroll. We find their products to be hands down the best in terms of quality and effectiveness and after years of replacing equipment too frequently, we’d definitely suggest you at least check them out.

Through our colleagues at Precision Athletica, we have a relationship with Blackroll and their Australian distributer who has created a bundle package for us that can be purchased online and shipped straight to your door.

If you use the code: ATHLETICA15 you will also receive a 15% discount on your online order. CLICK HERE to see the Blackroll pack.

Jon Perkins

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